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NATURE 



THE SUPERNATURAL, 



AS TOGETHER CONSTITUTING 



THE ONE SYSTEM OF GOD. 



HORACE BUSHNELL, D.D. 

/U1HOK OW " THE NEW LITE," " CHRISTIAN NOBTVRK," ETC. 



CHEAP EDITION. 



LONDON: 
ALEXANDER STRAHAN & CO, 

MDCCCLXVII. 



t\ 



V 



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PBEFAGE. 



The treatise here presented to the public was written, as re- 
gards the matter of it, some years ago. It has been ready for 
the press more than two years, and has been kept back by the 
limitations I am under, which have forbidden my assuming the 
small additional care of its publication. It need hardly be said 
that the subject has been carefully studied, as any subject 
rightly should be, that raises for discussion the great question 
of the age. 

Scientifically measured, the argument of the treatise is rather 
an hypothesis for the matters in question, than a positive theory 
of them. And yet, like every hypothesis that gathers in, 
accommodates, and assimilates all the facts of the subject, it 
gives, in that one test, the most satisfactory and convincing 
evidence of its practical truth. Any view which takes in easily 
all the facts of a subject must be substantially true. Even 
the highest and most difficult questions of science are deter- 
mined in this manner. While it is easy, therefore, to raise an 
attack at this or that particular point — call it an assumption, or 
a mere caprice of invention, or a paradox, or a dialectically 
demonstrable error — there will yet remain, after all such parti- 
cular denials, the fact that here is a wide hypothesis of the 
world, and the great problem of life, and sin, and supernatural 
redemption, and Christ, and a Christly providence, and a 



IV PEEFACE. 

divinely certified history, and of superhuman gifts entered into 
the world, and finally of God as related to all, which liquidates 
these stupendous facts, in issue between Christians and un- 
believers, and gives a rational account of them. And so the 
points that were assaulted, and perhaps seemed to be carried, 
by the skirmishes of detail, will be seen, by one who grasps 
the whole in which they are comprehended, to be still not 
carried, but to have their reason certified by the more general 
solution of which they are a part. One who flies at mere 
points of detail, regardless of the whole to which they belong, 
can do nothing with a subject like this. The points them- 
selves are intelligible only in a way of comprehension, or as 
being seen in the whole to which they are subordinate. 

It will be observed that the words of Scripture are often 
cited, and its doctrines referred to, in the argument. But this 
is never done as producing a divine authority on the subject in 
question. It is very obvious that an argument, which under- 
takes to settle the truth of Scripture history, should not draw 
on that history for its proofs. The citations in question are 
sometimes designed to correct mistakes, which are held by 
believers themselves, and are a great impediment to the easy 
solution of Scripture difficulties ; sometimes they are offered as 
furnishing conceptions of subjects, that are difficult to be raised 
in any other manner; sometimes they are presented because 
they are clear enough, in their superiority, to stand by their 
own self- evidence and contribute their aid, in that manner, to 
the general progress of the argument. 

I regret the accidental loss of a few references that could not 
be recovered without too much labour. 

H.B. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

DTTKODUCTORY — QUESTION STATEW. 

Mankind naturally predisposod to believe in supernatural facte, 1. Neologists spring 
up, whom the Greeks called Sophists, 2. The Romans had their Sophists also, 2. 
And now the turn of Christianity is come, 3. The Naturalism of our day reduces 
Christianity to a myth, in the same way, 3. This issue is precipitated by modem 
science, 5. "With tokens, on all sides, adverse to Christianity, 7. First, we have the 
Atheistic school of Mr Hume, 7. Next, Pantheism, 8. Next, the Physicalists, repre- 
sented by Phrenology, 8. The naturalistic characters of Unitarianism, 9. The 
Associationists, 9. The Magnetic necromancy, 9. The classes mostly occupied 
with the material laws and forces, 10. Modern politics, 10. The popular literature, 
12. Evangelical teachers fall into naturalism without being aware of it, 12. But we 
undertake no issue with science, 13. Our object is to find a legitimate place for the 
supernatural, as included in the system of God, 14. Ani this, with an. ultimate refer- 
ence to the authentication of the gospel history, 15. 



CHAPTER II. 

10EFINITIONS — NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL,. 

Naicm defined, 18. The supernatural denned, 19. Do not design to lirjit 1 1 deny the 
propriety of other uses, 20. Definition makes us supernatural beings ourselves, 23. 
Our supernatural action illustrated, 24. We operate supernaturally, by making new 
conjunctions of causes, 24. Not acted on ourselves, by causes that are efficient 
through us, 25. Not scale-beams, in our will, as governed necessarily by the strongest 
motive, 26. In wrong, we consciously follow the weakest motive, 27. The other 
functions of the soul, exterior to the will, are a nature, 29. Atlantic Monthly on exe- 
cutive limitations of power 30. And yet we are eons* ious, none the less, of liberty, 
31. Self-determination indestructible, 32. Hence the honour we put on heroes and 
• martyrs, 33. If we act supernaturally, why not also God ? 34. Not enough that God 
acts in the causes of nature, 35. 

a2 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

NATURE IS NOT THE SYSTEM OF GOD — THINGS AND POWERS, HOW RELATED. 

Nature oppresses our mind, at first, by her magnitudes, 38. Men, after all, demand 
something supernatural, 39. Hence the appetite we discover for the demon- 
strations of necromancy, 40. Shelley, the atheist, makes a mythology, 40. 
The defect of our new literature, that it has and yields no inspiration, 41. The 
agreement of so many modes of naturalism signifies nothing, because they 
have no agreement among themselves, 43. Familiarized to the subordination 
of causes in nature, that we may not be disturbed by the same fact in religion, 44. 
Strauss takes note of this fact when denying the possibility of miracles, 45. 
Geology shows tb at God thus subordinates nature, on a large scale, 47. In the 
creation of so many new races in place of the extinct races, 47. He created 
their germs, 48. But man must have been created in maturity, 49. The deve- 
lopment theory inverts all the laws of organic and inorganic substance, 50. 
The aspect of nature indicates interruptive and clashing forces, that are not in the 
merely mineral causes, 51. Distinction of Things and Powers, 53. Both fully 
contrasted, 54. Nature not the universe, 54. A subordinate part or member 
of the great universal system, 54. The principal interest and significance of 
the universe is in the powers, 56- 



CHAPTER IV. 

PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE AS RELATED TO THE FACT OF EVIL. 

?he world of nature, a tool-house for the practice and moral training of powers, 
57. Their training, a training of consent, which supposes a power of non-consent, 
i.e., sin, 58. Possibility of evil necessarily involved, 58. No limitation of 
omnipotence, 59. "Why, then, does God create with such a possibility ? 60. May 
be God's plan to establish in holiness, in despite of wrong, 61. No breach 
of unity involved in His plan, 62. The real problem of existence is character or the 
perfection of liberty, 62. Which require a trial in society, 63. And this an 
embodiment in matter, 64. Will the powers break loose from God, as they may? 
66. God desires no such result, 66. When it comes, no surprise upon His 
plan, or annihilation of it, 67. Illustrated by the founding of a school, 67. 
No causes of sin, only conditions privative, 69. What is meant by the term, 
69. First condition privative — defect of knowledge, 71. Have all categorical but 
no experimental knowledge, 72. The subject guilty, as having the former with- 
out the latter, 74. Second condition privative — unacquainted with law, and 
therefore unqualified for liberty, 76. A kind of prior necessity, therefore, that 
he be passed through a twofold economy, 76. Discover this twofold economy 
in other matters, 78. A third condition privative, as regards social exposure to 
the irruptions of bad powers, 80. This fact admitted by the necromancers, 
81. Sin then cannot be accounted for, 84. No validity in the objection, that God 
has been able to educate angels without sin, 84. Proof-text in Jude explained by 
Faber, 85. No objection lies that sin is made a necessary means of good, 
87. The existence of Satan explained or conceived, 88. The supremacy of God 
not diminished but increased by an eternal purpose to reduce the bad possibility, 91. 



CONTENTS. \Ttl 

CHAPTER V. 

THE FACT OF SIN. 

All naturalism begins with some professed or tacitly assumed denial of the fact of sin, 
93. On this point Mr Parker is ambiguous, 94. Fourier charges all evil against 
society, 96. Dr Strauss, all against the individual, and none against society, 97. 
The popular, pantheistic literature denies the fact of sin, 97. Appeal to observation 
for evidence, 99. We blame ourselves, as wrong-doers, 100. Our demonstrations 
show us to be exercised by the consciousness of sin, 102. We act on the supposition 
that sin is ever to be expected, dreaded, provided against, 103. Forgiveness supposes 
the fact, 106. So the pleasure we take in satire, 106. So the feeling of sublimity in 
the tragic sentiment, 107. Solutions offered by naturalists insufficient and futile, 108. 
They call it " misdirection," but it is self-direction, therefore sin, 108. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN. 

Sin has two forces, a spiritual and a dynamic, 110. By the latter, as a power of disturb- 
ance among causes, it raises storms of retribution against itself, 111. It also makes 
new conjunctions of causes that are destructive and disorderly, 113. So that nature 
answers to it with groans, 114. Thus it is with all the four great departments of life, 
and first, with the soul, or with souls, 115. No law or function is discontinued, but 
all its functions are become irregular and discordant, 116. Similar effects in the 
body, or in bodies, 116. Hence disease, and, to some extent, certainly mortality itself, 
118. Society is disordered by inheritance, through the principle of organic unity in- 
volved in propagation, 119. Objection considered, that God, in this way, does not 
give us a fair opportunity, 120. Two modes of production possible ; by propagation, 
and by the direct creation of each man, 120. The mode by propagation, with all its 
disadvantages of hereditary corruption, shown to be greatly preferable, 122. And yet, 
in this manner, society becomes organically disordered, 123. Similar effects of mis- 
chief in the material world, 125. Not true that nature, as we know it, represents the 
beauty of God, 126. Swedenborg holds that God creates through man, 127. And 
somehow it is clear that the creation becomes a type of man, as truly as of God, 127. 
Battle of the ants, 129. Deformities generally, consequences of sin, 129. Not true 
that they are introduced to make contrasts for beauty, 130. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ANTICIPATIVE CONSEQUENCES. 

We find disorder ,. prey, deformity, in the world, before man's arrival — what account shall 
be made of such a fact? 131. There are two modes of consequences, the subsequent, 
which are physical effects, and the anticipative, which respect the same facts before 
the time, 133. Propose now the question of the anticipative consequences, 134. Evil 
beings in the world before the arrival of man ; how far disorders in it may be due to 
the effect of their sin, 135. Anticipative consequences just as truly consequences as 
those which come after, 136. Intelligence must give tokens beforehand of what it 
perceives, 136. Agassiz and Dana — premeditations and prophetic types, 137. Such 
anticipative tokens necessary to show that God understands His empire beforehand, 



Vlll CONTENTS. 



139. The more impressive, that they are fresh creations, to a great extent, as shown 
hy Mr Agassiz, 140. Misshapen forms shown by Hugh Miller to increase, as the 
era of man approaches — as in the serpent race and many kinds of fishes, 141. God 
will moderate the pride of science thus by the facts of science, 143. The world as 
truly a conatus as an existing fact, 143. The Pantheistic naturalism gives a different 
account of these deformities, 143. Which account neither meets our want, nor even 
explains the facts, 144. Sin is seen to be a very great fact, as it must be, if it is 
anything, 145. Objection considered, that there was never, in this view, any real 
kosmos at all, 146. Unnature is the grand result of sin, 147. The bad miracle has 
transformed the world. 148. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NO REMEDY IN DEVELOPMENT OR SELF-REFORMATION. 

Two rival gospels, 151. The first, which is development, or the progress of the race, 
will not restore the fall of sin, 151. No race begins at the savage state, and in that 
state there is no root of progress, 153. All the advanced races appear, more or less 
distinctly, to have had visitations of supernatural influence, 154. If there is a law of 
progress, why are so many races degraded or extirpated ? 154. The first stage of 
man is a crude state, and the advanced and savage races are equally distant from it, 
155. Geology shows that God does not mend all disasters by development, 155. 
Healing is not development, 156. Generally associated with supernatural power, of 
which it is the type, 158. No one dares, in fact, to practically trust the development 
principle, whether in the state or in the family, 159. The second rival gospel pro- 
poses self-reformation or self-culture, with as little ground of hope, 160. No will- 
practice, or ethical observance, can mend the disorder of souls, 161. These cannot 
restore harmony, 162. Nor liberty, 162. The only sufficient help or reliance is God, 
162. There is really no speculative difficulty in the disabilities of sin , 163. Even 
Plato denies the possibility of virtue, by any mere human force, 165. Seneca, Ovid, 
Zenophanes, to the same effect, 167. Plato, Strabo, Pliny, all indicate a want of some 
supernatural light or revelation, 169. The conversion of Clement shows the fact in 
practical exhibition, 170, 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE SUPERNATURAL COMPATIBLE WITH NATURE AND SUBJECT TO 
FIXED LAWS. 

The world is a thing into which all the powers may rightfully act themselves, 172. Chil- 
dren at the play of ball, a good image of this higher truth, 173. Not the true doctrine 
of a supernatural agency, that God acts through nature, 175. Did not so act in pro- 
ducing the new races of geology, 175. Office of nature, as being designed to mediate 
the effects implied in duties and wrongs, 176. Nature the constant, and the super- 
natural the variable agency, 177. God really governs the world, and by a supernatural 
method, 178. Without this He has no liberty in nature, more than if it were a tomb, 
178. Manifestly we want a God living and acting now, 179. And yet all this action 
of God supposes no contravention of laws, 180. Keasons why this is inadmissible, 
180. Several kinds of law, but all agree in supposing the character of uniformity, 181. 
Thus we have natural law and moral law, but God's supernatural action not deter- 
mined by these, is submitted always to the law of His end, 182. His end being always 



CONTENTS. IX 



die same, He will be as exactly submitted to it as nature to her laws, 184. No re- 
turning here into the same circle as in nature, but a perpetually onward motion, 185. 
"What occurs but once here is done by a fixed law, 185. Many of the laws of the 
Spirit we know, 186. The idea of superiority in nature, as being uniformly corrected, 
187. Also, the impression of a superior magnitude in nature, 189. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CHARACTER OF JESUS FORBIDS HIS POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION 
WITH MEN. 

The superhuman personality of Christ is fully attested by His character, 192. And the 
description verifies itself, 192. Represented as beginning with a perfect childhood, 

193. Which childhood is described naturally, and without exaggerations of fancy, 

194. Represented always as an innocent being, yet with no loss of force, 196. His 
piety is unrepentant, yet successfully maintained, 197. He united characters which 
men are never able to unite perfectly, 198. His amazing pretensions are sustained 
so as never even to shock the sceptic, 200. Excels as truly in the passive virtues, 203. 
Bears the common trials in a faultless manner of patience, 204. His passion, as re- 
gards the time and the intensity, is not human, 205. His undertaking to organize, on 
earth, a kingdom of God, is superhuman, 207. His plan is universal in time, 208. 
He takes rank with the poor, and begins with them for His material, 209. Becoming 
the head thus of a class, He never awakens a partisan feeling, 212. His teachings 
are perfectly original and independent, 213. He teaches by no human or philosophic 
methods, 214. He never veers to catch the assent of multitudes, 214. He is com- 
prehensive, in the widest sense, 215. He is perfectly clear of superstition in a super- 
stitious age, 216. He is no liberal, yet shows a perfect charity, 217. The simplicity 
of His teaching is perfect, 218. His morality is not artificial or artistic, 220. He is 
never anxious for His success, 221. He impresses His superiority and His real 
greatness the more deeply, the more familiarly He is known, 223. Did any such 
character exist, or is it a myth, or a human invention ? 225. Is the character sin- 
less ? 226. Mr Parker and Mr Hennel think Him imperfect, 227. Answer of Milton 
to one of their accusations, 229. How great a matter that one such character has 
lived in our world, 220. 



CHAPTER XL 

CHRIST PERFORMED MIRACLES 

Miracles do not prove the gospel, but the problem itself is to prove the miracles, 232. 
General assumption of the sceptics, that miracles are incredible — Spinoza, Hume, 
Strauss, Parker, 233. Miracles defined, 233. What miracle is not, 234. Some con- 
cessions noted of the deniers of miracles — Hennel, 236. Also of Dr Strauss, 237. 
His solution of the immediate and the mediate action of God, 238. Proofs — That the 
supernatural action of man involves all the difficulties, 241. That sin is near in 
appearance to a miracle, 241. That nature, assumed to be perfect and not to be in- 
terrupted by God, is in fact become unnature already, 242. That without something 
equivalent, the restoration of man is impossible, 243. That nature was never de- 
signed to be the complete empire of God, 244. That if God has ever done anything, 



CONTENTS. 



He may as well do a miracle now, 244. Then He is shown, even by science, to have 
performed miracles, 245. But the great proof is Jesus Himself, having power with- 
out suspending any law of nature, 245. On an errand high enough to justify mi- 
racles, 246. It is also significant that the deniers can make no account of the history 
which is at all rational — Strauss, 248. Mr Parker concedes the fact that Christ Himself 
is a miracle, 249. Objection — why not also maintain the ecclesiastical miracles ? 250. 
That, according to our definition, there may be false miracles, 251. That if they are 
credible in a former age they also should be now, 252. That miracles are demonstra- 
tions of force, 253. But we rest in Jesus the chief miracle, 255. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WATER-MARKS IN THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 

The most convincing evidence, that which is already on hand, as in water-mark, un- 
discovered, 256. Principal evidence of the kind, the two economies, letter and spirit, 
as being inherently necessary, 257. Overlooked by our philosophers, 258. More 
nearly discerned by the heathen, 258. Once thought of as necessary, the necessity 
is seen, 259. Scriptures anticipate all human wisdom here, 260. And, in this pre- 
cedence, we discover that they are not of man, 262. Another strong proof in the 
gospels, not commonly observed, that the supernatural fact of the incarnation is 
so perfectly and systematically carried out, 262. There is no such concinnity of 
facts in any of the mythological supernaturalisms, 263. It appears in a multitude of 
points, as in the name gospel, 263. In the name, salvation, 264. In salvation by 
faith, 265. In justification by faith, 266. In the setting up of a kingdom of God on 
earth, 268. In the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and His works, as related to Christ 
and His, 269. In the doctrine of spiritual regeneration, 271. In the sacred mystery 
of the Trinity, 273. Hence Napoleon, Hennel, and others, express their admiration 
of the compactness and firm order of Christianity, 277. Whence came this close, 
internal adaptation of parts in a matter essentially miraculous ? 278. Only rational 
supposition, that the fabric is all of God, as it pretends to be, 279. May see in Mor- 
monism, Mohammedanism, and Romanism, what man can do' in compounding 
supernaturals, 280. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE WORLD IS GOVERNED SUPERNATURAL!/? IN THE INTEREST OF 
CHRISTIANITY 

There is but one God, who, governing the world, must do it coincidently with what He 
is doing in Christ, 283. And this Christ Himself boldly affirms, 284. Two kinds of 
Providence, the natural and supernatural — nature the fixed term between us and 
God, 285. And then there is a variable mode, in which we come into reciprocal rela- 
tion with God — this is the supernatural, 285. And in this field God rules for 
Christianity's sake, 286. The evidences are, first, that things do not take place as 
they should, if the effects of sin were left to the endless propagation of causes, 287. 
Hence then, while the great teachers of the world and their schools disappear. 
Christianity remains, 289. Itself an institution, in the very current of the flood. 289 



CONTENTS. XI 



A second evidence, that the events of the world show a divine hand, even that of 
Christ bearing rule, 291. The Jevdsh dispersion, the Greek philosophy already 
waning, the Greek tongue everywhere, the Eoman empire universal, a state of general 
peace, and so the way of Christ iB made ready, 291. So with the events that followed, 
292. But what of the dark ages, and other adverse facts ? 294. Enough that this 
mystery of iniquity must work, till the gospel is proved out, 295. Some events con- 
fessedly dark, and yet they might be turned to wear a look of advantage, if only we 
could fathom their import, 297. A third evidence, in the spiritual changes wrought 
in men — difficult to change a character, 299. The cases of Paul, Augustine, and 
others, 302. The changes are facts ; if Christianity did not work them, a supernatural 
Providence did, for Christianity's sake, 304. Not changed by their own ideas, 305. 
Not by theologic preconceptions — case of a short-witted person — Brainard's conjurer, 
etc., 307. More satisfactory to conceive these results to be wrought by the Holy Spirit, 
which comes to really the same thing, 309. How the critics venture, with great defect 
of modesty, to show the subjects of such changes, that they misconceive their 
experience, 311. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MIRACLES AND SPIRITUAL, GIFTS ARE NOT DISCONTINUED. 

If miracles are inherently incredible, nothing is gained by thrusting them back and cut- 
ting them short in time, 314. The closing up of the canon, no reason of discon- 
tinuance, 314. Certainlynot discontinued, for this reason, in the days of Chrysostom, 
315. There have been suspensions, here and there, but no discontinuance, 315. 
Does not follow that they will occur, in later times, in the exact way of the former 
times, 316. The reason of miracles, in that oscillation towards extremes, which 
belongs to the state of sin, 318. First, we swing toward reason, order, uniformity , 
next, toward fanaticism, 318. Hence almost every appearance of supernatural gifts, 
that we can trace, has come to its end in some kind of excess, 319. Why it is that 
lying wonders are generally contemporaneous, 320. The first thing impressed by 
investigation here, that miracles could not have ceased at any given date — no such 
date can be found, which they do not pass over, 323. Newman and the ecclesiastical 
miracles, 323. Miracles of the " Scots "Worthies," 324. Les Trembleurs des 
Cevennes, or French prophets, 324. Les Convulsionnaires de Saint Medard, 325. 
George Fox's miracles, and those of the Friends, 325. Abundance of such facts in 
our own time, as in premonitions, answers to prayer, healings, tongues, of the Mac- 
Donalds and the followers of Irving, 327. Case of Miss Fancourt, 328. Not 
true that the verdict of the thinking men of our day is to decide such a question, 329. 
The thinking men can make nothing of Joan of Arc, of Cromwell, and many other 
well-attested characters, 331. But why do we only hear of such at a distance? — why 
not meet the persons, see the facts ? 333. We do — Captain Yonnt's dream, 334. 

The testing of prayer by a physician, 335. Appear to have had the tongues in H , 

and other gifts, 836. Case of healing by an English disciple, 387. Case of a dis- 
eased cripple made whole, 839. The visit of a prophet, 341. Obliged to admit that, 
while such gifts are wholly credible, they are not so easily believed by one whose 
mind is pre-occupied by a contrary habit of expectation, 345. 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XV. 

CONCLUSION STATED — USES AND RESULTS. 

Argument recapitulated, 317. It does not settle, or at all move the question of inspira- 
tion, but sets the mind in a position to believe inspiration easily, 349. The mythical 
hypothesis virtually removed without any direct answer, 349. Have not proved all the 
miracles, but miracles — let every one discuss the particular questions for himself, 
350. Objection that everything is thus surrendered, 351. Eelation of the argument 
to Mr Parker's, 352. Particularly to his view of natural inspiration, 353. The argu- 
ment, if carried, will also effect the estimate held of natural theology, or modify the 
place given it, 356. And preserve the positive institutions by showing a rational 
basis for their authority, 359. And correct mat false ambition of philanthropy, 
which dispenses with Christianity as the regenerative institution of God, 361. And 
restore the true apostolic idea of preaching, 362. And require intellectual and moral 
philosophy to raise the great problem of existence, and recognize the fact of sin and 
supernatural redemption, 364. And, last of all, will give to faith and Christian ex- 
perience that solid basis on which they may De expected to unfold greater results. 
B66. 



NATURE iND THE SUPERNATURAL. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTEODUCTOEY. QUESTION STATED. 

In the remoter and more primitive ages of the world, some- 
times called mythologic, it will be observed that mankind, 
whether by reason of some native instinct, as yet uncorrupted, 
or some native weakness yet 'uneradicated, are abundantly dis- 
posed to believe in things supernatural. Thus it was in the 
extinct religions of Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome ; and 
thus also it still is in the existing mythologic religions of the 
East. Under this apparently primitive habit of mind, we find 
men readiest, in fact, to believe in that which exceeds the terms 
of mere nature ; in deities and apparitions of deities, that fill 
the heavens and earth with their sublime turmoil ; in fates and 
furies ; in nymphs and graces ; in signs and oracles, and in- 
cantations ; in " gorgons and chimeras dire." Their gods are 
charioteering in the sun, presiding in the mountain tops, rising 
out of the foam of the sea, breathing inspirations in the gas 
that issues from caves and rocky fissures, loosing their rage in 
the storms, plotting against each other in the intrigues of 
courts, mixing in battles to give success to their own people or 
defeat the people of some rival deity. All departments and 
regions of the world are full of their miraculous activity. 
Above ground, they are managing the thunders ; distilling in 
showers, or settling in dews ; ripening or blasting the harvests ; 
breathing health, or poisoning the air with pestilential infec- 
tions. - In the ground they stir up volcanic fires, and wrestle 
in earthquakes that shake down cities. In the deep world 
underground, they receive the ghosts of departed men, and 
preside in Tartarean majesty over the realms of the shades. 



2 THE GREEK SOPHISTS 

The unity of reason was nothing to these Gentiles. They had 
little thought of nature as an existing scheme of order and 
law. Everything was supernatural. The universe itself, in 
all its parts, was only a vast theatre in which the gods and 
demigods were acting their parts. 

But there sprang up at length among the Greeks, some four 
or five centuries before the time of Christ, a class of speculative 
neologists and rationalizing critics called Sophists, who began 
to put these wild myths of religion to the test of argument. 
If we may trust the description of Plato, they were generally 
men without much character, either as respects piety or even 
good morals ; a conceited race of Illuminati, who more often 
scoffed than argued against the sacred things of their religion. 
Still it was no difficult thing for them to shake, most effectu- 
ally, the confidence of the people in schemes of religion so 
intensely mythical. And it was done the more easily that the 
more moderate and sober-minded of the Sophists did not pro- 
pose to overthrow and obliterate the popular religion, but only 
to resolve the mythic tales and deities into certain great facts 
and powers of nature ; and so, as they pretended, to find a 
more sober and rational ground of support for their religious 
convictions. In this manner we are informed that one of their 
number, Eumerus, a Cyrenian, ''resolved the whole doctrine 
concerning the gods into a history of nature." 1 

The religion of the Romans, at a later period, underwent a 
similar process, and became an idle myth, having no earnest 
significance and as little practical authority in the convictions 
of the people. And when Christ came, the Saclducees were 
practising on the Jewish faith in much the same way. As 
philosophy entered, religion was falling everywhere before its 
rationalizing processes. It was poetry on one side and dialectics 
on the other ; and the dialectics were, in this case, more than 
a match for the poetry, — as they ever must be, until their real 
weakness and the cheat of their pretensions are discovered. 
What the Christian father, Justin Martyr, says of the Sophists 
of his time, was doubtless a sufficiently accurate account of the 
others in times previous, and may be taken as a faithful picture 
of the small residuum of religious conviction left by them all. 
"They seek," he says, "to convince us that the divinity ex- 
tends his care to the great whole and to the several kinds, but 

1 Neander, vol. i. p. 6. 



AND THEIR TIMES. 3 

not to me and to you — not to men as individuals. Hence it 
is useless to pray to him ; for everything occurs according to 
the unchangeable law of an endless cycle." 1 

Or, we may take the declaration of Pliny, from the side of 
the heathen philosophy itself, though many were not ready to 
go the same length, preferring to retain religion, which they 
oftener called superstition, as a good instrument for the state, 
and useful as a restraint upon the common people. He says : — 
" All religion is the offspring of necessity, weakness, and fear. 
What God is, if in truth he be anything distinct from the 
world, it is beyond the compass of man's understanding to 
know." 2 

Thus, between the destructive processes of reason entering on 
one side to demolish, and Christianity on the other to offer itself 
as a substitute, the old mythologic religions fell, and were com- 
pletely swept away. 

And now, at last, the further question comes, viz., whether 
Christianity itself is also, in its turn, to experience the same 
fate, and be exterminated by the same or a closely similar pro- 
cess ? It is now to be found that Christianity is only another 
form of myth, and is it so to be resolved into the mere " history 
of nature," as the other religions were before it? Is it now 
to be discovered that the prophecy and miracle of the Old 
Testament, and all the formally historic matters even of the 
gospels and epistles of the New, are reducible to mere natural 
occurrences, "under the unchangeable laws of an endless cycle ?" 
Is this process now to end in the discovery, beyond which there 
can be no other, that God himself is, in truth, nothing " distinct 
from the world ?" 

This is the new infidelity : not that rampant, crude-minded, 
and malignant scoffing which, in a former age, undertook to rid 
the world of all religion ; on the contrary, it puts on the air and 
speaks in the character of a genuine scholarship and philosophy. 
It simply undertakes, if we can trust its professions, to interpret 
and apply to the facts of Scripture, the true laws of historic 
criticism. It more generally speaks in the name of religion, 
and does not commonly refuse even the more distinctive name of 
Christianity. Coming thus in shapes of professed deference 
to revealed religion, many persons appear to be scarcely aware 

1 Neander, vol. i. p. 9. 2 Neander, vol. i. p. 10- 



4 THE CHRISTIAN SOPHISTS, 

of the questions it is raising, the modes of thought it is generat- 
ing, and the general progress toward mere naturalism it is 
beginning to set in motion. Many, also, are the more effectually 
blinded to the tendency of the times, that so many really true 
opinions and so many right sentiments, honourable to God 
and religion, are connected with the pernicious and false 
method by which it is, in one way or another, extinguishing the 
faith of religion in the world. It proposes to make a science 
of religion, and what can be more plausible than to have religion 
become a science ? 

It finds a religious sentiment in all men, which, in one view, 
is a truth. It finds a revelation of God in all things, which 
also is a truth. It discovers a universal inspiration of God in 
human souls ; which, if it be taken to mean that they are in- 
herently related to God, and that God, in the normal state, 
would be an illuminating, all-moving presence in them, is like- 
wise a truth. It rejoices also in the discovery of great and 
good men, raised up in all times to be seers and prophets of 
God ; which, again, is not impossible, if we take into account 
the possibility of a really supernatural training or illumination, 
outside of the Jewish cultus ; as in the case of Jethro, Job, and 
Cornelius, including probably Socrates and many others like him, 
who were inwardly taught of God and regenerated by the private 
mission of his Spirit. 

But exactly this the new infidelity cannot allow. All pre- 
tences of a supernatural revelation, inspiration, or experience, it 
rejects ; finding a religion, beside which there is no other, within 
the terms of mere nature itself ; a universal, philosophic, scien- 
tific religion. In this it luxuriates, expressing many very good 
and truly sublime sentiments ; sentiments of love, and brother- 
hood, and worship ; quoting Scripture, when it is convenient, 
as it quotes the Orphic hymns, or the Homeric and Sybilline 
verses, and testifying the profoundest admiration to Jesus Christ, 
in common with Numa, Plato, Zoroaster, Confucius, Mohammed, 
and others ; and perhaps allowing that he is, on the whole, the 
highest and most inspired character that has ever yet appeared 
in the world. All this, on the level of mere nature, without 
miracle, or incarnation, or resurrection, or new creation, or 
anything above nature. Such representations are only historic 
myths, covering perhaps real truths, but, as regards the historic 
form, incredible. Nothing supernatural is to be admitted. "Re- 



OR NATURALIZING CRITICS. 5 

demption itself, considered as a plan to raise man up out of thral- 
dom, under the corrupted action of nature — rolling back its 
currents and bursting its constraints — is a fiction. There is 
no such thraldom, no such deliverance, and so far Christianity 
is a mistake ; a mistake, that is, in everything that constitutes 
its grandeur as a plan of salvation for the world. 

We have heard abundantly of these and such like aberrations 
from the Christian truth in Germany, and also in the literary 
metropolis of our own country. But we have not imagined any 
general tendency, it may be, in this direction, as a peculiarity of 
Qur times. If so, we have a discovery to make ; for, though it 
may not be true that any large proportion of the men of our times 
have distinctly and consciously accepted this form of unbelief, 
yet the number of such is rapidly increasing, and, what. is worse, 
the number of those who are really in it, without knowing it, is 
greater and more rapidly increasing still. The current is this 
way, and the multitudes or masses of the age are falling into it. 
Let us take our survey of -the forms of doubt or denial that are 
converging on this common centre, and uniting, as a common 
force, against the faith of anything supernatural, and so against 
the possibility, in fact, of Christianity as a gospel of salvation to 
the world. 

From the first moment or birth-time of modern science, if we 
could fix the moment, it has been clear that Christianity must 
ultimately come into a grand issue of life and death with it, or 
with the tendencies embodied in its progress. Not that Chris- 
tianity has any conflict with the facts of science, or they with it. 
On the contrary, since both it and nature have their common 
root and harmony in God, Christianity is the natural foster- 
mother of science, and science the certain handmaid of Chris- 
tianity. And both together, when rightly conceived, must con- 
stitute one complete system of knowledge. But the difficulty is 
here ; that we see things only in a partial manner, and that the 
two -great modes of thought, or intellectual methods, that of 
Christianity in the supernatural department of God's plan, and 
that of science in the natural, are so different, that a collision is 
inevitable and a struggle necessary to the final liquidation of the 
account between them ; or, what is the same, necessary to a 
proper settlement of the conditions of harmony. 

Thus, from the time of Galileo's and Newton's discoveries, 



6 PRESENT TENDENCIES, 

down to the present moment of discovery and research in geo- 
logical science, we have seen the Christian teachers stickling for 
the letter of the Christian documents and alarmed for their safety, 
and fighting, inch by inch, and with solemn pertinacity, the 
plainest, most indisputable or even demonstrable facts. On the 
other aide, the side of science, multitudes, especially of the mere 
dilettanti, have been boasting, almost every month, some dis- 
covery that was to make a fatal breach upon revealed religion. 

And a much greater danger to religion is to be apprehended 
from science than this — viz., the danger that comes from what 
may be called a bondage under the method of science, — as if 
nothing could be true, save as it is proved by the scientific 
method. Whereas, the method of all the higher truths of 
religion is different, being the method of faith ; a verification by 
the heart, and not by the notions of the head. 

Busied in nature, and profoundly engrossed with her pheno- 
mena, confident of the uniformity of her laws, charmed with 
the opening wonders revealed in her processes, armed with 
manifold powers contributed to the advancement of commerce 
and the arts by the discovery of her secrets, and pressing 
onward still in the inquest, with an eagerness stimulated by 
rivalry and the expectation of greater wonders yet to be 
revealed — occupied in this manner, not only does the mind of 
scientific men but of the age itself become fastened to, and glued 
down upon, nature ; conceiving that nature, as a frame of phy- 
sical order, is itself the system of God ; unable to imagine any- 
thing higher and more general to which it is subordinate. 
Imprisoned in this manner by the terms and the method of 
nature, the tendency is to find the whole system of God included 
under its laws ; and then it is only a part of the same assump- 
tion that we are incredulous in regard to any modification, or 
seeming interruption of their activity, from causes included in 
the supernatural agency of persons, or in those agencies of God 
himself that complete the unity and true system of his reign. 
And so it comes to pass that, while the physical order called 
nature is perhaps only a single and very subordinate term of 
that universal divine system, a mere pebble chafing in the 
ocean-bed of its eternity, we refuse to believe that this pebble 
can be acted on at all from without, requiring all events and 
changes in it to take place under the laws of acting it has 
inwardly in itself. There is no incarnation, therefore, no 



CREATED BY SCIENCE. 7 

miracle, nc redemptive grace, or experience ; for God's system 
is nature, and it is incredible that the laws of nature should be 
interrupted ; all which is certainly true, if there be no higher, 
more inclusive system under which it may take place system- 
atically, as a result even of system itself. 

And exactly this must be the understanding of mankind, at 
some future time, when the account between Christianity and 
nature shall have been fully liquidated. When that point is 
reached, it will be seen that the real system of God includes two 
parts, a natural and a supernatural, and it will no more be 
incredible that one should act upon the other, than that one 
planet or particle in the department of nature should act upon 
and modify the action of another. But we are not yet ready for 
a discovery so difficult to be made. Thus far the tendency is 
visible, on every side, to believe in nature simply, and in Chris- 
tianity only so far as it conforms to nature and finds shelter 
under its laws. And the mind of the Christian world is be- 
coming, every day, more and more saturated with this propensity 
to naturalism ; gravitating, as it were, by some fixed law, though 
imperceptibly or unconsciously, toward a virtual and real un- 
belief in Christianity itself; for the Christianity that is become 
a part only of nature, or is classified under nature, is Christianity 
extinct. That we may see how far the mind of an age is infected 
by this naturalizing tendency, let us note a few of the thousand 
and one forms in which it appears. 

First we have the relics of the old school of denial and atheism, 
headed most conspicuously by Mr Hume and the French 
philosophers. All atheists are naturalists of necessity. And 
atheism there will be in the world as long as sin is in it. If 
the doctrine dies out as argument, it will remain as a perverse 
and scoffing spirit. Or it will be reproduced in the dress of a 
new philosophy. Dying out as a negation of Hobbes or Hume, 
it will reappear in the positive and stolidly physical pretender- 
ship of Comte. But, whatever shape or want of shape it takes, 
destructive or positive, — a doctrine or a scoffing, a thought of 
the head or a distemper of the passions, — it will of course regard 
a supernatural faith as the essence of all unreason. 

Still it cannot be said that the negations of Mr Hume are 
gone by, as long as they are assumed and practically held as 
fundamental truths, by many professed teachers of Christianity ; 
for it is remarkable that our most recent and most thorough- 



8 PANTHEISTS AND PHRENOLOGISTS. 

going school of naturalists, or naturalizing critics in the Christian 
Scriptures, really place it as the beginning and first principle of 
criticism that no miracle is credible or possible. This they 
take by assumption, as a point to be no longer debated, after the 
famous argument of Hume. The works of Strauss, Hennel, 
Newman, Froude, Fox, Parker, all more or less distinguished 
for their ability, as for their virtual annihilation of the gospels, 
are together rested on this basis. They are not all atheists ; 
perhaps none of them will admit that distinction ; some of them 
even claim to be superlatively Christian. But the assault upon 
Christianity, in which they agree, is the one from which the 
greatest harm is now to be expected, and that, in great part, for 
the reason that they do not acknowledge the. true genealogy of 
their doctrine, and that, hovering over the gulf that separates 
atheism from Christianity, they take away faith from one, with- 
out exposing the baldness and forbidding sterility of the other. 
They have many apologies, too, in the unhappy encumbrances 
thrown upon the Christian truth by its defenders, which makes 
the danger greater still. 

Next we have the school or schools of Pantheists ; who identify 
God and nature, regarding the world itself and its history as a 
necessary development of God, or the consciousness of God. Of 
course there is no power out of nature and above it to work a 
miracle ; consequently, no revelation that is more than a develop- 
ment of nature. 

Next in order comes the large and vaguely- defined body of 
physicalists, who, without pretending to deny Christianity, value 
themselves on finding all the laws of obligation, whether moral 
or religious, in the laws of the body and the world. The phreno- 
logists are a leading school in this class, and may be taken as 
an example of the others. Human actions are the results of 
organization. Laws of duty are only laws of penalty or benefit, 
inwrought in the physical order of the world ; and Combe " On 
the Constitution of Man " is the real gospel, of which Chris- 
tianity is only a less philosophic version. Thousands of persons 
who have no thought of rejecting Christianity are sliding contin- 
ually into this scheme, speaking and reasoning every hour about 
matters of duty, in a way that supposes Christianity to be only 
an interpreter of the ethics of nature, and resolving duty itself, or 
even salvation, into mere prudence or skill ; — a learning to walk 
among - things, so as not to lose one's balance and fall or be 



ETHICAL CONCEPTIONS OF UNITARIANS. 9 

hurt ; or, when it is lest, finding how to recover and stand up 
again. 

Closely related to these, or else included among them, we are 
to reckon, with some exceptions, the very intelligent, influential 
body of Unitarian teachers of Christianity. Maintaining, as 
they have done with great earnestness, the truth of the Scrip- 
ture miracles, they furnish a singular and striking illustration of 
the extent to which a people may be slid away from their specu- 
lative tenet, by the practical drift of what may be called their 
working scheme. Denying human depravity, the need of a 
supernatural grace also vanishes, and they set forth a religion 
of ethics, instead of a gospel to faith. Their word is practically, 
not regeneration, but self-culture. There is a good seed in us, 
and we ought to make it grow ourselves. The gospel proposes 
salvation ;_ a better name is development. Christ is a good 
teacher or interpreter of nature, and only so a redeemer. God, 
they say, has arranged the very scheme of the world so as to 
punish sin and reward virtue ; therefore, any such hope of for- 
giveness as expects to be delivered of the natural effects of sin 
by a supernatural and regenerative experience, is vain ; because 
it implies the failure of God's justice and the overturning of a 
natural law. Whoever is delivered of sin, must be delivered by 
such a life as finally brings the great law of justice on his side. 
To be justified freely by grace is impossible. 1 

Again, the myriad schools of Associationists take it as a fun- 
damental assumption, whether consciously or unconsciously, that 
human nature belongs to the general order of nature, as it comes 
from God, and that nothing is wanting to the full perfection 
of man's happiness, but to have society organized according 
to nature, that is, scientifically. No new creation of the soul 
in good, proceeding from a point above nature, is needed or 
to be expected. The propensities and passions of men are all 
right now; " attractions are proportioned to destinies " in them, 
as in the planets. What is wanted, therefore, is not the super- 
natural redemption of man, but only a scientific reorganization of 
society. 

Next we have the magnetists or seers of electricity opening 
other spheres and conditions of being by electric impacts, and 
preparing a religion out of the revelations of natural clair- 
voyance and scientific necromancy ; the more confident of the 

3 Dewey's Sermon on Betribution. 



10 ASSOCIATIONISTS AND MAGNETISTS. 

absurdity of the Christian supernaturalism, or the plan of 
redemption by Christ, that they have been so mightily illumi- 
nated by the magnetic revelations. They are greatly elated 
also by other and more superlative discoveries, in the planets 
and third heavens and the two superior states ; boasting a more 
perfect and fuller opening of the other world than even Christi- 
anity has been able to make. 

Again, it will be observed, that almost any class of men, 
whose calling occupies them much with matter and its laws, 
have always, and now more than ever, a tendency to merely 
naturalistic views of religion. This is true of physicians. 
Continually occupied with the phenomena of the body, and its 
effects on the mind, they are likely, without denying Christi- 
anity, to reduce it practically to a form of naturalism. So of 
the large and generally intelligent class of mechanics. Having 
it for the occupation and principal study of life to adjust appli- 
cations of the great laws of chemistry and dynamics, and 
exercised but little in subjects and fields of thought external to 
mere nature, they very many of them come to be practical un- 
believers in everything but nature. They believe in cause and 
effect, and are likely to be just as much more sceptical in re- 
gard to any higher and better faith. Active-minded, ingenious, 
and sharp, but restricted in the range of their exercise, they 
surrender themselves in great numbers to a feeling of unreality 
in everything but nature. 

Again, the tendency of modern politics, regarded as concerned 
with popular liberty, is in the same direction. Civil govern- 
ment is grounded, as the people are every day informed by 
their leaders, with airs of assumed statesmanship, in a social 
compact — a pure fiction assumed to account for whole worlds 
of fact ; for everybody knows that no such compact was ever 
formed, or ever supposed to be, by any people in the world. It 
has the advantage, nevertheless, of accounting for the political 
state, atheistically, under mere nature, and is therefore the 
more readily accepted, though it really accounts for nothing. 
For if every subject in the civil state were in it as a real con- 
tractor, joining and subscribing the contract himself, what is 
there even then to bind him to his contract, save that, in the 
last degree, he is bound by the authority of God and the 
sanctions of religion. Besides, there never can be in this view 
any such thing as legislation, but only an extended process of 



POLITICS AND PROGRESS. 11 

contracting ; for legislation is the enactment of laws, and laws 
have a morally binding authority on men, not as contractors, 
but as subjects. It seems to be supposed that this doctrine of 
a social compact has some natural agreement with popular 
institutions, where laws are enacted by a major vote ; whereas 
the major supposes a minor, non-assenting vote ; and as this 
minor vote has been always a fact from first to last, the com- 
pact theory fails after all to show how majorities get a right to 
govern that is better, even theoretically, than the right of any 
single autocrat. There is, in fact, no conceivable basis of civil 
authority and law which does not recognize the state as being, 
in this form or in that, a creation of Providence, and as Provi- 
dence manages the world in the interest of redemption, a fact 
supernatural ; which does not recognize the state as God's 
minister in the supernatural works and ends of his administra- 
tion — appointed by him to regulate the tempers, restrain the 
passions, redress the wrongs, shield the persons, and so to con- 
serve the order of a fallen race, existing only for those higher 
aims which he is prosecuting in their history. Still we are 
contriving always how to get some ground of civil order that 
separates it wholly from God. A social compact, popular 
sovereignty, the will of the people, anything that has an 
atheistic jingle in the sound and stops in the plane of mere 
nature best satisfies us. We renounce in this manner our true 
historic foster-mother religion, taking for the oracle and patron 
saint of our politics Jean Jacques Rousseau. And the result 
is, that the immense drill of our political life, more far-reaching 
and powerful than the pulpit, or education, or any protest of 
argument, operates continually and with mournful certainty 
against the supernatural faith of Christianity. Hence, too, it 
is that we hear so much of commerce, travel, liberty, and the 
natural spread of great inventions, as causes that are starting 
new ideas, and must finally emancipate and raise all the nations 
of mankind ; in which it seems to be supposed that there is 
even a law of self-redemption in society itself. As if these 
external signs or incidents of progress were its causes also ; or 
as if they were themselves uncaused by the supernatural and 
quickening power of Christ. Whether Christianity can finally 
survive this death-damp of naturalism in our political and social 
ideas, remains to be seen. 

I have only to add, partly as a result of all these causes, and 



12 REIGNING LITERATURE. 

partly as a joint cause with them, that the popular literature of 
the times is becoming generally saturated with naturalistic senti- 
ments of religion. The literature of no other age of the world 
was ever more religious in the form, only the religion of it is, 
for the most part, rather a substitute for Christianity than a 
tribute to its honour, — a piracy on it as regards the beautiful 
and sublime precepts of ethics it teaches, but a scorner only the 
more plausible of whatever is necessary to its highest authority, 
as a gift from God to the world. It praises Christ as great or 
greatest among the heroes ; finds a God in the all, whom it 
magnifies in imposing pictures of sublimity ; rejoices in the con- 
ceit of an essential divinity in the soul and its imaginations ; 
dramatizes culture, sentiment, and philanthropy ; and these, in- 
Hated with an airy scorn of all that implies redemption, it offers 
to the world, and especially to the younger class of the world, 
as a more captivating and plausible religion. 

To pursue the enumeration further is unnecessary. What we 
mean by a discussion of the supernatural truth of Christianity ip 
now sufficiently plain. We undertake the argument from a 
solemn conviction of its necessity, and because we see that the 
more direct arguments and appeals of religion are losing their 
power over the public mind and conscience. This is true 
especially of the young, who pass into life under the combined 
action of so many causes, conspiring to infuse a distrust of what- 
ever is supernatural in religion. Persons farther on in life are 
out of the reach of these new influences, and, unless their atten- 
tion is specially called to the fact, have little suspicion of what 
is going on in the mind of the rising classes of the world, — 
more and more saturated every day with this insidious form of 
unbelief. And yet we all, with perhaps the exception of a few 
who are too far on to suffer it, are more or less infected with the 
same tendency. Like an atmosphere, it begins to envelope the 
common mind of the world. We frequently detect its influence 
in the practical difficulties of the young members of the churches, 
who do not even suspect the true cause themselves. Indeed, 
there is nothing more common than to hear arguments advanced 
and illustrations offered by the most evangelical preachers, that 
have no force or meaning save what they get from the current 
naturalism of the day. We have even heard a distinguished and 
carefully orthodox preacher deliver a discourse, the very doctrine 
of which was inevitable, unqualified naturalism. Logically taken 



WHAT WE DO NOT ATTEMPT. 13 

and carried out to its proper result, Christianity could have had 
no ground of standing left, — so little did the preacher himself 
understand the true scope of his doctrine, or the mischief that 
was beginning to infect his conceptions of the Christian truth. 

In the review we have now sketched, it may easily be seen on 
what one point the hostile squadrons of unbelief are marching. 
Never before, since the inauguration of Christianity in our world, 
has any so general and momentous issue been made with it as 
this which now engages and gathers to itself, in so many ways, 
the opposing forces of human thought and society. Before all 
these combinations the gospel must stand, if it stands ; and 
against all these must triumph, if it triumphs. Either it must 
yield, or they must finally coalesce and become its supporters. 

Do we undertake then, with a presumptuous and even pre- 
posterous confidence, to overturn all the science, argument, 
influence of the modern age, and so to vindicate the supernatur- 
alism of Christianity ? By no means. We do not conceive that 
any so heavy task is laid upon us. On the contrary, we regard 
all these adverse powers as being, in another view, just so many 
friendly powers, every one of which has some contribution to 
make for the firmer settlement and the higher completeness of 
the Christian faith. They are not in pure error, but there is 
a discoverable and valuable truth for us, maintained by every 
one, if only it were adequately conceived and set, as it will be, 
in its fit place and connexion. Mr Hume's argument, for ex- 
ample, contains a great and sublime truth, viz., that nothing 
ever did or will take place out of system, or apart from law — 
not even miracles themselves, which must, in some higher view, 
be as truly under law and system as the motions even of the 
stars. Pantheism has a great truth, and is even wanted, as a 
balance of rectification to the common error that places God 
afar off, outside of his works or above, in some unimagined 
altitude. No doubt there is a truth somewhere in spiritism 
which will yet accrue to the benefit of Christianity, or, at least, 
to an important rectification of our conceptions of man. So of 
all the other schools and modes of naturalism that I have named. 
I have no jealousy of science, or any fear, whether of its facts 
or its arguments. For God, we may be certain, is in no real 
disagreement with himself. It is only a matter of course that, 
until the great account between Christianity and science is 



14 WHAT WE DO ATTEMPT. 

liquidated, there should be an appearance of collision, or dis- 
agreement, which does not really exist. As little do we pro- 
pose to go into a desultory battle with the manifold schemes of 
naturalism, above described ; still less to undertake a reconci- 
liation of each or any of them with the Christian truth. What 
I propose is simply this : to find a legitimate place for the super- 
natural in the system of God, and show it as a necessary part of 
the divine system itself. 

If I am successful, I shall make out an argument for the super- 
natural in Christianity that will save these two conditions : — 
First, the rigid unity of the system of God ; secondly, the fact 
that everything takes place under fixed laws. I shall make out 
a conception both of nature and of supernatural redemption by 
Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, which exactly meets 
the magnificent outline view of God's universal plan, given by 
the great apostle to the Gentiles, — " And he is before all things, 
and by him [in Him, it should be,] all things consist." Chris- 
tianity, in other words, is not an afterthought of God, but a fore- 
thought. It even antedates the world of nature, and is " before 
all things," — " before the foundation of the world." Instead of 
coming into the world, as being no part of the system, or to in- 
terrupt and violate the system of things, they all consist, come 
together into system, in Christ, as the centre of unity and the 
head of the universal plan. The world was made to include 
Christianity ; under that becomes a proper and complete frame 
of order ; to that crystallizes, in all its appointments, events, and 
experiences ; in that has the design or final cause revealed, by 
which all its distributions, laws, and historic changes are deter- 
mined and systematized. All which is beautifully and even 
sublimely expressed in the single word " consist," a word that 
literally signifies standing together ; as when many parts coalesce 
in a common whole. Hence it is the more to be regretted that 
the translators, in the rendering " by him," instead of the more 
literal and exact rendering "in him," have so far confused the 
significance and obscured the beauty of a passage that, properly 
translated, is so remarkable for the transcendent, philosophic 
sublimity of its import. 

The same truth is declared more circumstantially and as much 
less succinctly in the gospel of John. " All things are made by 
him, and without him [i.e., apart from Him as the formal cause 
or regulative idea of the plan] was not any thing made that was 



TO FORTIFY CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 15 

made." Or to the same effect, — " He was in the world," — " He 
came unto his own," affirming that he was here before he came 
as the son of Mary ; and that, when he came, he came not as an 
intruder, defiant of all previous order in nature, but as coming 
unto " his own," to fulfil the creative idea centred in his person, 
and to complete the original order of the plan. 

Such is the general object of the treatise I now undertake ; 
and, if I am able, in this manner, to obtain a solid, intellectual 
footing for the supernatural, evincing not only the compatibility, 
but the essentially complementary relation of nature and the 
supernatural, as terms included, ab origine, in the unity of God's 
plan or system, I shall, of course, produce a conviction, as much 
more decided and solid, of those great practical truths, which 
belong to the supernatural side of Christianity ; such as incarna- 
tion, regeneration, justification by faith, divine guidance, and 
prayer ; — truths which are now held so feebly, and in a manner 
so timid and partial, as to rob them of their genuine power. 
Anything which displaces the present jealousy of what is super- 
natural, or abolishes the timidity of faith, must, as we may 
readily see, be an important contribution to Christian experience 
and the practical life of religion. Nothing do we need so deeply 
as a new inauguration of faith ; or, perhaps, I should rather say, 
a re -inauguration of the apostolic faith, and the spirit which dis- 
tinguished the apostolic age. And yet a re -inauguration of this 
must, in some very important sense, be a new inauguration ; for 
it can be accomplished only by some victory over naturalism, 
that prepares a rational foundation for the supernatural — such as 
was not wanted, and was, therefore, impossible to be prepared, 
in the first age of the Church. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that, while I am looking with 
interest to the emboldening of faith in the great truths of holy 
experience, I have a particular looking in my argument toward 
the authentication of the Christian Scriptures, in a way that 
avoids the inherent difficulties of the question of a punctually 
infallible and verbal inspiration. These difficulties, I feel con- 
strained to admit, are insuperable ; for, when the divine autho- 
rity of the Scriptures is made to depend thus on the question of 
their most rigid, strictest, most punctual infallibility, they are 
made, in fact, to stand or fall by mere minima, and not by any- 
thing principal in them, or their inspiration. And then what- 



16 TO ESTABLISH 

ever smallest doubt can be raised, at any most trivial point ; 
suffices to imperil everything, and the main question is taken at 
the greatest possible disadvantage. The argument so stated 
must inevitably be lost, as, in fact, it always is. For it has even 
to be given up, at the outset, by concessions that leave it nothing 
on which to stand. For no sturdiest advocate of a verbal and 
punctual inspiration can refuse to admit variations of copy, and 
the probable or possible mistake of this or that manuscript, in a 
transfer of names and numerals. It is equally difficult to with- 
hold the admission here and there of a possible interpolation, or 
that words have crept into the text that were once in the margin. 
Starting, then, with a definition of infallibility, fallibility is at 
once and so far admitted. After all, the words, syllables, iotas 
of the book are coming into question ; the infallibility is logically 
at an end even by the supposition. The moment we begin to ask 
what manuscript we shall follow? what words and numerals 
correct ? what interpolations extirpate ? we have possibly a 
large work on hand, and where is the limit ? Shall we stop 
short of giving up 1 John v. 7, or shall we go a large stride 
beyond, and give up the first chapters of Matthew and Luke ? 
We are also obliged to admit that the canon was not made by 
men infallibly guided by the Spirit; and then the possibility 
appears to logically follow that, despite of any power they had to 
the contrary, some book may have been let into the canon which, 
with many good things, has some specks of error in it. Besides, 
if the question is thrown back upon us, at this point, we are 
obliged to admit, and do, as a familiar point of orthodoxy, that 
our own polarities are disturbed, our judgment discoloured, by 
sin ; so that, if the book is infallible, the sense of it as infallible 
is not and can not be in us ; how, then, can we affirm it, or 
maintain it, in any such manner of strictness and exact percep- 
tion ? We could not even sustain the infallibility of God in this 
manner; i.e., because we are able to know it, item by item, as 
comprehending in ourselves a complete sense of His infallibility. 
We establish God's infallibility only by a constructive use of 
generals, the particulars . of which are conceived by us only in 
the faintest, most partial manner. 

- Now these difficulties, met in establishing a close and punc- 
tual infallibility, are father logical than real, and originate, not 
in any defect of the -Scriptures, but in a statement which puts 
us in a condition to make nothing of a good cause — a condi- £ 



THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 17 

tion to be inevitably worsted. Indeed, there is no better proof 
of a divine force and authority in the Scriptures, able to affirm 
and always affirming itself in its own right, even to the end of 
the world, than that they continue to hold their ground so 
firmly, when the speculative issue joined in their behalf has 
been so badly chosen, and, if we speak of what is true logically, 
so uniformly lost. 

I see no way to gain the verdict which, in fact, they have 
hitherto gained for themselves, but to change our method and 
begin at another point, just where they themselves begin ; to 
let go the minima and lay hold of the principles — those great, 
outstanding verities, in which they lay their foundations, and 
by which they assert themselves. As long as the advocates of 
strict, infallible inspiration are so manifestly tangled and lost in 
the trivialities they contend for, these portentous advances of 
naturalism will continue. And, as many are beginning already, 
with no fictitious concern, to imagine that Christianity is now 
being put upon its last trial — whether to stand or not they 
hardly dare be confident — why should they be further discou- 
raged by adhering to a mode of trial which, in being lost, really 
decides nothing ? Let the Church of God, and all the friends 
of revelation, as a word of the Lord to faith, turn their thoughts 
upon an issue more intelligent and significant, and one that can 
be certainly sustained. 



18 NATURE DEFINED. 



CHAPTER II. 

DEFINITIONS.— NATUKE AND THE SUPEENATUEAL. 

In order to the intelligent prosecution of our subject, we 
need, first of all, to settle on the true import of certain words 
and phrases, by the undistinguishing and confused use of which, 
more than by any other cause, the unbelieving habit of our 
time has been silently and imperceptibly determined. They 
are such as these : — " Nature," " the system of nature," " the 
laws of nature," " universal nature," " the supernatural," and 
the like. The first and last named, " nature " and the " super- 
natural," most need our attention; for, if these are carefully 
distinguished, the others will scarcely fail to yield us their true 
meaning. 

The Latin etymology of the word nature presents the true 
force of the term, clear of all ambiguity. The nature [natura] 
of a thing is the future participle of its being or becoming — its 
about-to-be, or its about-to-come-to-pass ; and the radical idea is, 
that there is, in the thing whose nature we speak of, or in the 
whole of things called nature, an about-to-be, a definite futuri- 
tion, a fixed law of coming to pass, such that, giving the thing, 
or whole of things, all the rest will follow by an inherent neces- 
sity. In this view nature, sometimes called "universal nature," 
and sometimes " the system of nature," is that created realm of 
being or substance which has an acting, a going on or process 
from within itself, under and by its own laws. Or, if we say, 
with some, that the laws are but another name for the immediate 
actuating power of God, still it makes no difference, in any other 
respect, with our conception of the system. It is yet as if the 
laws, the powers, the actings, were inherent in the substances, 
and were by them determined. It is still to our scientific 
separated from our religious contemplation, a chain of causes 



ALSO THE SUPERNATURAL. 19 

and effects, or a scheme of orderly succession, determined from 
within the scheme itself. 

Having settled thus our conception of nature, our conception 
of the supernatural corresponds. That is supernatural, whatever 
it be, that is either not in the chain of natural cause and effect, 
or which acts on the chain of cause and effect, in nature, from 
without the chain. Thus, if any event transpires in the bosom, 
or upon the platform of what is called nature, which is not from 
nature itself, or is varied from the process nature would execute 
by her own laws, that is supernatural, by whatever power it is 
wrought. Suppose, for example (which we may, for illustration's 
sake, even though it cannot be), that there were another system 
of nature incommunicably separate from ours, some " famous 
continent of universe," like that on which Bunyan stumbled " as 
he walked through many regions and countries ; " if, then, this 
other universe were swung up side by side with ours great dis- 
turbance would result, and the disturbance would be to us super- 
natural, because from without our system of nature ; for, though 
the laws of our system are acting still in the disturbance, 
they are not, by the supposition, acting in their own system 
or conditions, but by an action that is varied by the forces and 
reciprocal actings of the other. So if the processes, com- 
binations, and results of our system of nature are interrupted or 
varied by the action, whether of G-od, or angels, or men, so as 
to bring to pass what would not come to pass in it by its own 
internal action, under the laws of mere cause and effect, the 
variations are, in like manner, supernatural. And exactly this 
we expect to show : viz., that God has, in fact, erected another 
and higher system, that of spiritual being and government for 
which nature exists ; a system not under the law of cause and 
effect, but ruled and marshalled under other kinds of laws, and 
able continually to act upon or vary the action of the processes 
of nature. If, accordingly, we speak of system, this spiritual 
realm or department is much more properly called a system than 
the natural, because it is closer to God, higher in its conse- 
quence, and contains in itself the ends or final causes for which 
the other exists, and to which the other is made to be sub- 
servient. There is, however, a constant action and reaction 
between the two, and, strictly speaking, they are both together, 
taken as one, the true system of God ; for a system, in the most 
proper and philosophic sense of the word, is a complete and 



20 LOOSER USES 

absolute whole, which cannot be taken as a part or fraction of 
anything. 

We do not mean, of course, by these definitions or distinctions 
of the natural and supernatural, to assume the impropriety of the 
great multitude of expressions in which these words are more 
loosely employed. They may well enough be so employed, the 
convenience of speech requires it ; but it is only the more ne- 
cessary on that account that we thoroughly understand ourselves 
when we use them in this manner. 

Thus we sometimes speak of " the system of nature," using 
the word Nature in a loose and general way, as comprising all 
created existence. But if we accommodate ourselves in this 
manner, it behoves us to see that we do not, in using such a 
term, slide into a false philosophy which overturns all obliga- 
tion by assuming the real universality of cause and effect, and 
the subjection of human actions to that law. It may be true 
that men are only things determinable under the same condi- 
tions of causality, but it will be soon enough to assert that fact 
when it is ascertained by particular inquiry ; which inquiry is 
much more likely to result in the impression that the phrase, 
" system of nature," understood in this manner as implying that 
human actions are determined by mechanical laws, is much as 
if one were to speak of the "system of the school-house," as 
supporting the inference that the same kind of frame -work that 
holds the timbers together is also to mortise and pin fast the 
moral order of the school. In the same manner we sometimes 
say "universal nature," when we only catch up the term to 
denote the whole creation or universe, without deciding any- 
thing in regard to the possible universality of nature properly 
defined. To this, again, there is no objection, if we are only 
careful not to slide into the opinion that natural laws and causes 
comprehend everything ; as multitudes do, without thought, in 
simply yielding to the force of such a term. 

The word " Nature ," again, is currently used in our modern 
literature as the name of a Universal Power ; be it an eternal 
fate, or an eternal system of matter reigning by its necessary 
laws, or an eternal God who is the All, and is, in fact, nowise 
different from a system of matter. Nature undergoes, in this 
manner, a kind of literary apotheosis, and receives the mock 
honours of a dilettanti worship. And the new-nature religion 
is the more valued, because both the God and the worship, being 



PERMISSIBLE WITH CAUTION. 21 

creatures of the reigning school of letters, are supposed to be of 
a more superlative and less common quality. But, though 
something is here said of religion with a religious air, the word 
nature, it will be found, is used in exact accordance still with 
its rigid and proper meaning, as denoting that which has its fixed 
laws of coming to pass within itself. The only abuse consists in 
the assumed universal extent of nature by which it becomes a 
fate, an all-devouring abyss of necessity, in which God, and man, 
and all free beings are virtually swallowed up. If it should 
happen that nature proper has no such extent, but is, instead, a 
comparatively limited and meagre fraction of the true universe, 
the new religion would appear to have but a very shallow 
foundation, and to be, in fact, a fraud as pitiful as it is airy 
and pretentious. 

We also speak of a nature in free beings, and count upon it 
as a motive, cause, or ground of certainty in respect of their 
actions. Thus we assign the nature of God and the nature of 
man as reasons of choice and roots of character, representing 
that it is " the nature of God" to be holy, or (it may be) " the 
nature of man to do wrong." Nor is there any objection to 
this use of the word " nature," taken as popular language. 
There is, doubtless, in God, as a free intelligence, a constitu- 
tion having fixed laws, answering exactly to our definition of 
nature. That there is a proper and true nature in man we 
certainly know ; for all the laws of thought, memory, associa- 
tion, feeling in the human soul are as fixed as the laws of the 
heavenly bodies. It is only the will that is not under the law 
of cause and effect, and the other functions are by their laws 
subordinated in a degree to the uses of the will and its direct- 
ing sovereignty over their changes and processes. And yet the 
will, calling these others a nature, is in turn solicited and drawn 
by them, just as the expressions alluded to imply, save that 
they have, in fact, no causative agency on the will at all. They 
are the will's reasons, that in view of which it acts ; so that, 
with a given nature, it may be expected, with a certain qualified 
degree of confidence, to act thus or thus ; but they are never 
causes on the will, and 'the choices of the will are never their 
effects. Therefore, when we say that it is "the nature of man 
to do this," the language is to be understood in a secondary, 
tropical sense, and not as when we say that it is the nature of 
fire to bum or water to freeze. 



22 LOOSER USES PERMISSIBLE. 

As little would I be understood to insist that the term super- 
natural is always to be used in the exact sense I have given it. 
Had the word been commonly used in this close, sharply- denned 
meaning, much of our present unbelief, or misbelief, would have 
been obviated ; for these aberrations result almost universally 
from our use of this word in a manner so indefinite and so little 
intelligent. Instead of regarding the supernatural as that which 
acts on the chain of cause and effect in nature from without the 
chain, and adhering to that sense of the term, we use it, very 
commonly, in a kind of ghostly, marvelling sense, as if relating 
to some apparition, or visional wonder, or it may be to some 
desultory, unsystematizable action, whether of angels or of God. 
Such uses of the word are permissible enough by dictionary 
laws, but they make the word an offence to all who are any 
way inclined to the rationalizing habit. On the other hand, 
there are many who claim to be acknowledged as adherents 
of a supernatural faith, with as little definite understanding. 
Believing in a God superior to nature, acting from behind and 
through her laics, they suppose that they are, of course, to be 
classed as believers in a supernatural being and religion. But 
the genuine supernaturalism of Christianity signifies a great 
deal more than this ; viz., that God is acting from without on 
the lines of cause and effect in our fallen world and our dis- 
ordered humanity, to produce what, by no mere laws of nature, 
will ever come to pass. Christianity, therefore, is supernatural, 
not because it acts through the laws of nature, limited by, and 
doing the work of the laws ; but because it acts regeneratively 
and new-creatively to repair the damage which those laws, in their 
penal action, would otherwise perpetuate. Its very distinction, 
as a redemptive agency, lies in the fact that it enters into nature, 
in this regenerative and rigidly supernatural way, to reverse 
and restore the relapsed condition of sinners. 

But the real import of our distinction between nature and 
the supernatural, however accurately stated in words, will not 
fully appear, till we show it in the concrete ; for it does not 
yet appear that there is, in fact, any such thing known as the 
supernatural agency defined, or that there are in esse any beings, 
or classes of beings, who are distinguished by the exercise of 
such an agency. That what we have defined as nature truly 
exists will not be doubted, but that there is any being or power 



DISTINCTION SEEN IN THE WORLD OF FACT. 23 

in the universe, who acts, or can act upon the chain of cause 
and effect in nature from without the chain, many will doubt 
and some will strenuously deny. Indeed, the great difficulty 
heretofore encountered, in establishing the faith of a super- 
natural agency, has been due to the fact that we have made a 
ghost of it ; discussing it as if it were a marvel of superstition, 
and no definite and credible reality. "Whereas, it will appear, 
as we confront our difficulty more thoughtfully and take its 
full force, that the moment we begin to conceive ourselves 
rightly, we become ourselves supernatural. It is no longer 
necessary to go hunting after marvels, apparitions, suspensions 
of the laws of nature, to find the supernatural : it meets us in 
what is least transcendent and most familiar, even in ourselves. 
In ourselves we discover a tier of existences that are above 
nature, and, in all their most ordinary actions, are doing their 
will upon it. The very idea of our personality is that of a 
being not under the law of cause and effect, a being supernatural. 
This one point clearly apprehended, all the difficulties of our 
subject are at once relieved, if not absolutely and completely 
removed. 

If any one is startled or shocked by what appears to be the 
extravagance of this position, let him recur to our definition ; 
viz., that nature is that world of substance, whose laws are 
laws of cause and effect, and whose events transpire, in orderly 
succession, under those laws ; the supernatural is that range of 
substance, if any such there be, that acts upon the chain of 
cause and effect in nature from without the chain, producing 
thus results that, by mere nature, could not come to pass. It 
is not said, be it observed, as is sometimes done, that the 
supernatural implies a suspension of the laws of nature, a 
causing them, for the time, not to be — that, perhaps, is never 
done — it is only said that we, as powers not in the line of 
cause and effect, can set the causes in nature at work, in new 
combinations otherwise never occurring, and produce, by our 
action upon nature, results which she, as nature, could never 
produce by her own internal acting. 

Illustrations are at hand without number. Thus, nature, 
for example, never made a pistol, or gunpowder, or pulled a 
trigger ; all which being done, or procured to be done, by the 
criminal, in his act of murder, he is hung for what is rightly 
called his unnatural deed. So of things not criminal ; nature 



24 SUPERNATURAL ACTION FAMILIAR. 

never built a house, or modelled a ship, or fitted a coat, or 
invented a steam-engine, or wrote a book, or framed a constitu- 
tion. These are all events that spring out of human liberty, 
acting in and upon the realm of cause and effect, to produce 
results and combinations, which mere cause and effect could 
not; and, at some point of the process in each, we shall be 
found coming down upon nature, by an act of sovereignty just 
as peremptory and mysterious as that which is discovered in a 
miracle, only that a miracle is a similar coming down upon it 
from another and higher being, and not from ourselves. Thus, 
for example, in the firing of the pistol, we find materials brought 
together and compounded for making an explosive gas, an 
arrangement prepared to strike a fire into the substance com- 
pounded, an arm pulled back to strike the fire, muscles con- 
tracted to pull back the arm, a nervous telegraph running down 
from the brain, by which some order has been sent to contract 
the muscles ; and then, having come to the end of the chain of 
natural causes, the jury ask, who sent the mandate down upon 
the nervous telegraph, ordering the said contraction ? And, 
having found, as their true answer, that the arraigned criminal 
did it, they offer this as their verdict, and on the strength of 
the verdict he is hung. He had, in other words, a power to set 
in order a line of causes and effects, existing elementally in nature, 
and then, by a sentence of his will, to start the line, doing his 
unnatural deed of murder. If it be inquired how he was able to 
command the nervous telegraph in this manner, we cannot tell, 
any more than we can show the manner of a miracle. The 
same is true in regard to all our most common actions. If one 
simply lifts a weight, overcoming, thus far, the great law of 
gravity, we may trace the act mechanically back in the same 
way ; and if we do it, we shall come, at last, to the man acting 
in "his personal arbitrament, and shall find him sending down 
his mandate to the arm, summoning its contractions and senten- 
cing the weight to rise. In which, as we perceive, he has just 
so much of power given him to vary the incidents and actings of 
nature as determined by her own laws — so much, that is, of 
power supernatural. 

And so all the combinations we make in the harnessing of 
nature's powers imply, in the last degree, thoughts, mandates 
of will, that are, at some point, peremptory over the motions 
by which we handle, and move, and shape, and combine the 



SUPERNATURAL POWER IN MAN. 25 

substances and causes of the world. And to what extent we 
may go on to alter, in this manner, the composition of the 
world, few persons appear to consider. For example, it is not 
absurd to imagine the human race, at some future time, when 
the population and the works of industry are vastly increased, 
kindling so many fires, by putting wood and coal in contact 
with fire, as to burn up or fatally vitiate the world's atmosphere. 
That the condition of nature will, in fact, be so far changed by 
human agency, is probably not to be feared. We only say that 
human agency, in its power over nature, holds, or may well 
enough be imagined to hold, the sovereignty of the process. 
Meantime, it is even probable, as a matter of fact, that infections 
and pestilential diseases invading, every now and then, some 
order of vegetable or animal life, are referable, in the last 
degree, to something done upon the world by man. For indeed 
we shall show before we have done, that the scheme of nature 
itself is a scheme unstrung and mistuned, to a very great 
degree, by man's agency in it, so as to be rather unnature after 
all than nature ; and for just that reason, demanding of God, 
even for system's sake, in the highest range of that term, 
miracle and redemption. 

Suffice it, for the present, simply to clear, as well as we are 
able, this main point, the fact of a properly supernatural power 
in man. Thus, some one, going back to the act by which the 
pistol was fired, will imagine, after all, that the murderer's act 
in the firing was itself caused in him by some condition back of 
what we call his choice, as truly as the explosion of the powder 
was caused by the fire. Then, why not blame the powder, we 
answer, as readily as the man, which most juries would have 
some difficulty in doing, though none at all in blaming the 
man ? The nature of the objection is purely imaginary, as, in 
fact, the common sense, if we should not rather say the common 
consciousness of the word decides ; for we are all conscious of 
acting from ourselves, uncaused in our action. The murderer 
knows within himself that he did the deed, and that nothing 
else did it through him. So his consciousness testifies, so the 
consciousness of every man revising his actions, and no real 
philosopher will ever undertake to substitute the verdict of 
consciousness, by another, which he has arrived at only by 
speculation, or a logical practice in words. The sentence of 
consciousness is final. 



26 THE WILL IS NOT DETERMINED 

Hence the absurd and really blameable ingenuity of those 
would-be philosophers who, not content with the clear, indis- 
putable report of consciousness in such a case, go on to ask 
whether the wrong-doer of any kind was not acting, in his 
wrong, under motives and determined by the strongest motives, 
and, since he is a being made to act in this manner, whether, 
after all, he really acted himself, any more than other natural 
substances do when they yield to the strongest cause ? Doubt- 
less he acted under motives, and probably enough he felt beside 
that half his crime was in his motive, being that which his 
own bad heart supplied. The matter of the strongest motive 
is more doubtful ; but if it be true, in every case, that the 
wrong-doer chooses what to him is the strongest motive, it by 
no means follows that he acts in the way of a scale-beam, 
swayed by the heaviest weight ; for the strength of the motive 
may consciously be derived, in great part, from what his own 
perversity puts into it ; and, what is more, he may be as fully 
conscious that he acts, in every case, from himself, in pure self- 
determination, as he would be if he acted for no motive at all. 
Consciously he is not a scale-beam, or any passive thing, but a 
self- determining agent; and if he looks out always for the 
strongest motive, he still as truly acts from his own personal 
arbitrament as if he were always pursuing the weakest. 

It does not, however, appear, from any evidence we can dis- 
cover, that human action is determined uniformly by the 
strongest motive. That is the doctrine of Edwards, in his 
famous treatise on the will, 1 but as far as there is any appear- 
ance of force in his argument, it consists in the inference drawn, 

1 The fortunes of this Treatise, in the world of morals and religion, have been quite 
as remarkable as the puzzle it has raised in the world of letters. The immediate ob- 
ject of the writer was gained, and the faith of God's eternal government, assailed by a 
crazy scheme of liberty which brought in open question the Divine foreknowledge, and 
the proper self-understanding of God in his plan, was effectually vindicated. So far 
the argument availed to serve the genuine purposes of religion. But, from that day to 
this, passing over to the side opposite, it has been turned more and more disastrously 
against the Christian truth, and even against the first principles of moral obligation. 
Priestley was an implicit believer in the doctrine, holding it as the foundation-principle 
of a scheme of necessity which could hardly be said to leave a real place for duty in the 
world. And now, in our own day, it has descended to the level of the subterranean in- 
fidelity, and become a familiar and standing argument with almost every moral outcast, 
who has thought enough in him to know that he is annoyed by the distinctions of virtue. 
Having turned philosopher on just this point, and shown that we are all governed by 
the strongest motive, he asks, with an air of triumph, where, then, is the place for 
blame? What do we all but just what we are made to do ? Could Edwards return to 
look on the uses now made of his argument, his saintly spirit might possibly be stirred 
with some doubts of its validity. 

Compare the able statement of this subject by Harris. — (Primeval Man, 100. 
Sec. VI.) 



BY THE STRONGEST MOTIVE. 27 

or judgment passed after any act of choice, that the inducing 
motive must have been the strongest because it prevailed. 
Whereas, appealing to his simple consciousness, he would have 
found that he had never a thought of the superior strength of 
the motive chosen, before the choice ; and that, when he ascer- 
tained the fact of its superiority, it was only by an inference or 
speculative judgment drawn from the choice — just as some 
harvester, noting the heavy perspiration that drenches his body 
in the field, will judge from such a sign that he must be dis- 
solving with heat ; when the real sense of his body, wiser and 
truer than his logic, is that he is being cooled. And what, 
moreover, if it should happen that Edwards, in his inference, is 
only carrying over into the world of mind a judgment formed 
in the world of matter ; subjecting human souls to the analogy 
of scale-beams, and concluding that, since nature yields to the 
strongest force, the supernatural must do the same. Meantime, 
what is the consciousness testifying ? Here is the whole ques- 
tion. There is no place here for a volume, or even for the 
amount of a syllogism. Find what the consciousness testifies, 
and that, all tricks of argument apart, is the truth. 

Taking then this simple issue, the verdict, we are quite sure, 
is against the doctrine of Edwards, viz., — that in all wrong or 
blameable action, we consciously take the weakest motive and 
most worthless, and partly for that reason, blame our own folly 
and perversity. It may be that the good rejected stands 
superior only before our rational convictions, while the entice- 
ment followed stirs more actively our lusts and passions. Still 
we know and believe, and deeply feel, at the time ; we even 
shudder, it may be, in the choice, at the sense of our own per- 
versity, that we are choosing the worst and meanest thing, 
casting away the gold and grasping after the dirt. Probably a 
good many crude-minded persons, little capable of reporting 
the true verdict of their consciousness, would answer immedi- 
ately, after any such act of choice, that they made it because 
the motive was strongest ; for every most vulgar mind is so 
far under the great law of dynamics as to judge that whatever 
force prevails must be the strongest. Besides, how could he 
be a reasonable being if he chose the weakest motive ; there- 
fore it must be that he chose the strongest. So it stands, not 
as any report of consciousness, but simply as a must be of the 
logical understanding. Whereas, the real sin of the choice 



28 THE WILL NOT UNDER 

was exactly this and nothing else, that the wrong-doer followed 
after the weakest and worst, and did not act as a reasonable 
being should ; and that is what his consciousness, if he could 
get far back enough into the sense of the moment, would 
report. Nor does it vary at all the conclusion that a wrong- 
doer chooses the weakest motive, to imagine, with many loose- 
minded teachers, that the right is only postponed, and the 
wrong chosen for the moment, with a view to secure the double 
benefit both of the right and the wrong ; for the real question 
at the time is, in every such case, whether it is wisest, best, 
and every way most advantageous, to make the delay and try 
for the double benefit ; and no man ever yet believed that it 
was. Never was there a case of wrong or sinful choice in 
which the agent believed that he was really choosing the 
strongest or weightiest and most valuable motive. 1 

So far, then, is man from being any proper item of nature. 
He is under no law of cause and effect in his choices. He 
stands out clear and sovereign as a being supernatural, and his 
definition is, that he is an original power, acting, not in the 
line of causality, but from himself. He is not independent of 
nature in the sense of being separated from it in his action, 
but he is in it, environed by it, acting through it, partially 
sovereign over it, always sovereign as regards his self-determin- 
ation, and only not completely sovereign as regards executing 
all that he wills in it. In certain parts or departments of the 
soul itself, such as memory, appetite, passion, attention, imagin- 

1 A certain class of theologians may, perhaps, imagine that such a view of choice 
takes away the ground of the Divine foreknowledge. How can G-od foreknow what 
choices men may form, when, for aught that appears, they as often choose against the 
strongest motive as with it ? He could not foreknow anything, we answer, under such 
conditions, if he were obliged to find out future things, as the astronomers make out 
almanacs, by computation. But he is a being, not who computes, but who, by the 
eternal necessity even of his nature, intuits everything. His foreknowledge does not 
depend on his will, or the adjustment of motives to make us will thus or thus, but he 
foreknows everything first conditionally, in the world of possibility, before he creates, 
or determines anything to be, in the world of fact. Otherwise, all his purposes would 
be grounded in ignorance, not in wisdom, and Ms knowledge would consist in following 
after his will, to learn what his will has blindly determined. This is not the Scripture 
doctrine, which grounds all the purposes of God in his wisdom ; that is, in what he 
perceives by his eternal intuitive foreknowledge of what is contained in all possible 
systems and combinations before creation — " whom he did foreknow, them he also did 
predestinate," — " elect, according to the foreknowledge of God." If, then, God fore- 
knows, or intuitively knows, all that is in the possible system and the possible man, 
without calculation, he can have little difficulty after that in foreknowing the actual 
man, who is nothing but the possible in the world of possibles, set on foot and become 
actual in the world of actuals. So far, therefore, as the doctrine of Edwards was con- 
trived to support the certainty of God's foreknowledge, and lay a basis for the syste- 
matic government of the world, and the universal sovereignty of God's purposes, it ap- 
pears to be quite unnecessary. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 29 

ation, association, disposition, the will-power in him is held in 
contact, so to speak, with conditions and qualities that are 
dominated partly by laws of cause and effect ; for these facul- 
ties are partly governed by their own laws, and partly sub- 
mitted to his governing will by their own laws ; so that, when 
he will exercise any control over them, or turn them about to 
serve his purpose, he can do it, in a qualified sense and degree, 
by operating through their laws. As far as they are concerned, 
he is pure nature, and he is only a power superior to cause and 
effect at the particular point of volition where his liberty 
culminates, and where the administration he is to maintain 
over his whole nature centres. 

It is also a part of the same general view that, as all 
functions of the soul but the will are a nature, and are only 
qualifiedly subjected to the will by their laws, the will, without 
ever being restricted in its self-determination, will often be 
restricted as regards executive force to perform what it wills. 
In this matter of executive force or capacity, we are under 
physiological and cerebral limitations ; limitations of associa- 
tion, want, condition ; limitations of miseducated thought, per- 
verted sensibility, prejudice, superstition, a second nature of 
evil habit and passion, by which, plainly enough, our capacity 
of doing or becoming is greatly reduced. This, in fact, is the 
grand, all- conditioning truth of Christianity itself; viz., that 
man has no ability in himself, and by merely acting in himself, 
to become right and perfect ; and that, hence, without some 
extension to him from without and above, some approach and 
ministration that is supernatural, he can never become what his 
own ideals require. And therefore it is the more remarkable 
that so many are ready, in all ages, to take up the notion, and 
are even doing it now, as a fresh discovery, that these stringent 
limitations on our capacity take away the liberty of our will. 
As if the question of executive force, the ability to make or 
become, had anything to do with our self- determining liberty ! 
At the point of the will itself we may still be as free, as truly 
original and self-active, as if we could do or execute all that 
we would ; otherwise, freedom would be impossible, except on 
the condition of being omnipotent ; and even then, as in due 
time we shall see, would be environed by many insuperable 
necessities. As long ago as when Paul found it present with 
him to will, but could not find how to perform, this distinction 



30 SELF-DETERMINATION STILL 

between volitional self-determination and executive capacity 
began to be recognized, and has been recognized and stated in 
every subsequent age till now. No one is held, even for a 
moment, to a bad and wrong self-determination, simply because 
he has not the executive force to will himself into an angel, or 
because he cannot become, unhelped, and at once, all that he 
would. He is therefore still a fair subject of blame, partly 
because he has narrowed his capacities or possibilities, of doing 
or becoming, by his former sin, and partly because he con- 
sciously does not will the right and struggle after God now, 
which he is under perfect obligation to do, because the terms of 
duty are absolute or unconditional ; and, if possible, still more 
perfect, because he has helps of grace and favour put in his 
reach to be laid hold of, which, if he accepts them, will in- 
fallibly medicate the disabilities he is under. 

That mankind, as being under sin, are under limitations of 
executive ability, unable to do and become all that is required 
of them by their highest ideals of thought, is then no new 
doctrine. Christianity is based in the fact of such a disability, 
and affirms it constantly as a fact that creates no infringement 
of responsibility and personal liberty at all, as regards the 
particular sphere of the will itself. And therefore it will not 
be expected of any Christian that he will be greatly impressed 
by what are sometimes offered now as original and peremptory 
decisions against human liberty, grounded in the fact tnat man 
is not omnipotent — not able to do or become, what he is able 
to think. Thus we have the following, offered as a final dis- 
posal of the question of liberty, by a very brilliant, entertaining, 
and often very acute writer: — " Do you want an image of the 
human will, or the self- determining principle, as compared with 
its pre-arranged and impossible restrictions ? A drop of water 
imprisoned in a crystal ; you may see such a one in any miner- 
alogical collection. One little particle in the crystalline prism 

of the solid universe The chief planes of its inclosing 

solid are of course organization, education, condition. Organi- 
zation may reduce the will to nothing, as in some idiots ; arid, 
from this zero, the scale mounts upward, by slight gradations. 
Education is only second to nature. Imagine all the infants 
born this year in Boston and Timbuctoo to change places ! 
Condition does less, but " give me neither poverty nor riches " 
was the prayer of Agur, and with good reasoxu If there is any 



A FACT OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 31 

improvement in modern theology, it is in getting out of the 
region of pure abstractions, and taking these everyday forces 
into account." 1 

It may have been a fault of the former times that, in 
judgments of human character and conduct, no sufficient allow- 
ance was made for these " everyday forces," and others which 
might be named ; if so, let the mistake be corrected ; but to 
imagine that the freedom or self-determining liberty of the 
human will is to be settled by any such external references, 
even starts the suspicion that the idea itself of the will has not 
yet arrived. So when the doctrine is located as being a some- 
thing in "the region of pure abstractions," because it is not 
found by some scalpel inspection, or out-door hunt in the social 
conditions of life. What can be further off from all abstractions 
than the immediate, living, central, all- dominating consciousness 
of our own self-activity ? Is consciousness an abstraction ? Is 
anything further off from abstractions, or more impossible to 
be classed with them ? On the contrary, the very conceit here 
allowed, that the great question of consciousness may be settled 
by external processes of deduction, and by generalizations that 
do not once touch the fact, is only an attempt to make an 
abstraction of it. And yet, after it is done and seems to be 
finally disposed of in that manner, after the discovery is fully 
made out that our self- determining will is only " a drop of 
water imprisoned in a crystal, one little particle in the crystal- 
line prism of the solid universe," who is there, not excepting 
the just now very much humbled discoverer himself, who does 
not know, every day of his life, and does not show, a thousand 
times a day, that he has the sense in him of something different ? 
Even if he does no more than humorously dub himself Autocrat 
of the Breakfast Table, it will be sufficiently plain that his 
autocracy is a much more considerable figure with him than a 
drop of water in a crystal. He most evidently imagines some 
presiding and determining mind at the Table, that is much more 
of a reality and much less of an abstraction. 

And so it will.be found universally that, however strongly 
drawn, the supposed disadvantages and hindrances to virtue may 
be, there is, in every mind, a large and positive consciousness 
of being master of its own choices and responsible for them. 
A translation from Boston to Timbuctoo will not anywise alter 

1 Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1858, p. 464. 



32 HENCE ALL GREATNESS 

the fact. There was never a man, however miseducated, or 
suppressed by his necessities, or corrupted by bad associations, 
or misled by base examples, who had not still his moral con- 
victions, and did not blame himself in wrongs committed. So 
firm, and full, and indestructible is this inborn, moral autocracy 
of the soul, that, as certainly in Timbuctoo as in Boston, it 
takes upon itself the sentence of wrong, and no matter what 
inducements there may have been, no matter how brutalized 
the practices in which it had been trained, recognizes still the 
sovereignty of right, and blames itself in every known deviation 
from it. His judgment of what particular things are necessary 
to fulfil the great idea of right may be coarse, and, as we 
should say, mistaken ; but he acknowledges, in the deepest 
convictions of his nature, that nothing done against the eternal, 
necessary law of right can be justified. The fact that his wild 
nature is so nearly untamable to right, or that being or becoming 
the perfect good he thinks, is so far off from his capacity, so 
nearly impossible under his executive limitations, is really 
nothing. Still he must, and does, condemn the bad liberty 
allowed in every conscious wrong. 

Self-determination, therefore, as respects the mere will as a 
power of volition, is essentially indestructible. And it is this 
gift of power, this originative liberty, constituting, as it does, 
the central attribute of all personality, that gives us impressions 
of what is personal in character, so different from those which 
we derive from anything natural. Hence, for example, it is 
that we look on the nobler demonstrations of character in man, 
with a feeling so different from any that can be connected with 
mere cause and effect. In every friend we distinguish some- 
thing more than a distillation of natural causes ; a free, faithful 
soul, that, having a power to betray, stays fast in the integrity 
of love and sacrifice. We rejoice in heroic souls, and in every 
hero we discover a majestic spirit, how far transcending the 
merely instinctive and necessary actings of animal and vegetable 
life. He stands out in the flood of the world's causes, strong 
in his resolve, not knowing, in a just fight, how to yield, but 
protesting, with Coriolanus, — 

Let the Volsces 
Plough Rome and harrow Italy, I'll never 
Be such a gosling, as to obey instinct, but stand, 
As if a man was author of himself, 
And knew no other kin. 



IN CHARACTER. S3 

Hence the honour we so profusely yield to the martyrs, who 
are God's heroes ; able, as in freedom, to yield their flesh up 
in the fires of testimony, and sing themselves away in the smoke 
of their consuming bodies. Were they a part 'only of nature, 
and held to this by the law of cause and effect in nature, we 
should have as much reason to honour their Christian fortitude, 
as we have to honour the combustion of a fire ; even that which 
kindled their fagots : — as much and not more. 

Such is the sense we have of all great character in men. 
We look upon them, not as wheels that are turned by natural 
causes, yielding their natural effects, as the flour is yielded by a 
mill, but what we call their character is the majestic proprium 
of their personality, that which they yield as the fruit of their 
glorious self-hood and immortal liberty. What, otherwise, can 
those triumphal arches mean, arranged for the father of his 
country, now on his way to be inaugurated as its First Magis- 
trate ? what those processions of women, strewing the way 
with flowers ? what the thundering shouts of men, seconding 
their voices by the boom of cannon posted on every hill ? 
Why this thrill of emotion just now running electrically through 
so many millions of hearts towards this single man ? It is the 
reverence they feel, and cannot fitly express, to personal great- 
ness and heroic merit in a great cause. Were our Washington 
conceived in that cause of good and great action, by which he 
became the deliverer of his country, to be the mere distillation 
of natural causes, who of us would allow himself to be thrilled 
with any such sentiments of reverence and personal homage ? 
It is no mere wheel, no link in a chain, that stirs our blood in 
this manner ; but it is a man, the sense we have of a man, 
rising out of the level of things, great above all things, great 
as being himself. Here it is, in demonstrations like these, 
that we meet the spontaneous verdict of mankind apart from 
all theories, and quibbles, and sophistries of argument, testify- 
ing that man is a creature out of mere nature — a free cause in 
himself — great, therefore, in the majesty of great virtues and 
heroic acts. 

The same is true, as we may safely assume, in regard to all 
the other orders and realms of spiritual existence ; to angels 
good and bad, seraphim, principalities, and powers in heavenly 
places. They are all supernatural, and it is in them, as belong- 
ing to this higher class of existences, that God beholds the final 



S4 WE OUESELVES, THEN, 

causes, the uses, and the grand systematizing ideas of his uni- 
versal plan. Nature, as comprehending the domain of cause 
and effect, is only the platform on which He establishes his 
kingdom as a kingdom of minds or persons, every one of whom 
has power to act upon it, and to some extent, greater or less, 
to be sovereign over it. So that, after all which has been done 
by the sensuous littleness, the shallow pride, and the idolatry 
of science to make a total universe, or even a God, of nature, 
still it is nothing but the carpet on which we children have 
our play, and which we may only use according to its design, 
or may cut, and bum, and tear at will. The true system of 
God centres still in us, and not in it ; in our management, our 
final glory and completeness of being as persons, not in the 
set figures of the carpet we so eagerly admire, and call it science 
to ravel. 

Finding, now, in this manner, that we ourselves are super- 
natural creatures, and that the supernatural, instead of being 
some distant, ghostly affair, is familiar to us as our own most 
familiar action ; also, that nature, as a realm of cause and 
effect, is made to be acted on from without by us and all moral 
beings — thus to be the environment of our life, the instrument 
of our activity, the medium of our right or wrong doing to- 
ward each other, and so the school of our trial — a further 
question rises, viz., what shall we think of God's relations 
to nature ? If it be nothing incredible that we should act on 
the chain of cause and effect in nature, is it more incredible 
that God should thus act ? Strange as it may seem, this is 
the grand offence of supernaturalism, the supposing that God 
can act on nature from without; on the chain of cause and 
effect in nature frorn without the chain of connexion, by which 
natural consequences are propagated — exactly that which we 
ourselves are doing as the most familiar thing in our lives ! It 
involves, too, as we can see at a glance, and shall hereafter 
show more fully, no disruption by us of the laws of nature, 
but only a new combination of its elements and forces, and 
need not any more involve such a disruption by Him. Nor can 
any one show that a miracle of Christ (the raising, for example, 
of Lazarus), involves anything more than that nature is pre- 
pared to be acted on by a divine power, just as it is to be acted 
on by a human, in the making of gunpowder, or the making 



ARE SUPERNATURAL AGENTS. 35 

and charging of a firearm. For though there seems to be an 
immense difference in the grade of the results accomplished, it 
is only a difference which ought to appear, regarding the grade 
of the two agents by whom they are wrought. How different 
the power of two men, creatures though they be of the same 
order ; a Newton, for example, a Watt, a Fulton, and some 
wild Patagonian or stunted Esquimaux. So, if there be angels, 
seraphim, thrones, dominions, all in ascending scales of endow- 
ment above one another, they will, of course, have powers 
supernatural, or capacities to act on the lines of causes in 
nature that correspond with their natural quantity and degree. 
What wonder then is it, in the case of Jesus Christ, that he 
reveals a power over nature appropriate to the scale of his 
being and the inherent supremacy of his divine person ? 

And yet it will not do, our philosophers tell us, to admit 
any such thing as a miracle, or that anything does or can take 
place by a divine power which nature itself does not bring to 
pass ! God, in other words, cannot be supposed to act on the 
line of cause and effect in nature ; for nature is the universe, 
and the law of universal order makes a perfect system. Hence 
a great many of our naturalists, who admit the existence of 
God, and do not mean to identify his substance with nature, 
and call him the Creator, and honour him, at least in words, 
as the Governor of all things, do yet insist that it must be 
unphilosophical to suppose any present action of God, save 
what is acted in and through the pre-ordained system of nature. 
The author of the Vestiges of Creation, for example (p. 118), 
looks on cause and effect as being the eternal will of God, and 
nature as the all- comprehensive order of his Providence, be- 
sides which, or apart from which, he does, and can be supposed 
to do, nothing. A great many who call themselves Christian 
believers, really hold the same thing, and can suffer nothing 
different. Nature, to such, includes man. God and nature, 
then, are the all of existence, and there is no acting of God 
upon nature ; for that would be supernaturalism. He may be 
the originative source of nature ; he may even be the im- 
mediate, all-impelling will, of which cause and effect are the 
symptoms ; that is, he may have made and may actuate the 
machine, in that fated, foredoomed way which cause and effect 
describes, but he must not act upon the machine-system outside 
of the foredoomed way ; if he does, he will disturb the immut- 



36 SO ALSO IS GOD, 

able laws ! In fact, he has no liberty of doing anything, but 
just to keep agoing the everlasting trundle of the machine. He 
cannot even act upon his works, save as giving and maintain- 
ing the natural law of his works ; which law is a limit upon 
Him, as truly as a bond of order upon them. He is incrusted 
and shut in by his own ordinances. Nature is the god above 
God, and he cannot cross her confines. His ends are all in 
nature ; for, outside of nature, and beyond, there is nothing 
but Himself. He is only a great mechanic, who has made a 
great machine for the sake of the machine, having his work all 
done long ages ago. Moral government is out of the question 
— there is no government but the predestined rolling of the 
machine. If a man sins, the sin is only the play of cause and 
effect ; that is, of the machine. If he repents, the same is 
true — sin, repentance, love, hope, joy, are all developments of 
cause and effect ; that is, of the machine. If a soul gives 
itself to God in love, the love is but a grinding- out of some 
wheel he has set turning, or it may be turns, in the scheme of 
nature. If I look up to him and call him Father, he can only 
pity the conceit of my filial feeling, knowing that it is attribut- 
able to nothing but the run of mere necessary cause and effect 
in me, and is no more in fact from me than the rising of a mist 
or cloud is from some buoyant freedom in its particles. If I 
look up to him for help and deliverance, He can only hand me 
over to cause and effect, of which I am a link myself, and bid 
me stay in my place to be what I am made to be. He can 
touch me by no extension of sympathy, and I must even break 
through nature (as He Himself cannot) to obtain a look of 
recognition. 

How miserable a desert is existence, both to him and to us, 
under such conditions — to Him, because of his character ; to us, 
because of our wants. To be thus entombed in his works, to 
have no scope for his virtues, no field for his perfections, no ends 
to seek, no liberty to act, save in the mechanical way of mere 
causality — what could more effectually turn his goodness into a 
well-spring of baffled desires and defeated sympathies, and make 
His glory itself a baptism of sorrow. Meantime the supposition 
is, to us, a mockery, against which all our deepest wants and 
highest personal affinities are raised up, as it were in mutinous 
protest. If there is nothing but God and nature, and God him- 
self has no relations to nature, save just to fill it and keep it on 



OTHERWISE A NULLITY. 37 

lis way, then, being ourselves a part of nature, we are only a 
link, each one, in a chain let down into a well, where nothing 
else can ever touch us but the next link above ! Oh, it is 
horrible ! Our soul freezes at the thought ! We want, we must 
have, something better — a social footing, a personal, and free, 
and flexible, and conscious relation with our God ; that he should 
cross over to us, or bring us over the dark Styx of nature unto 
Himself, to love Him, to obtain His recognition, to receive His 
manifestation, to walk in His guidance, and be raised to that 
higher footing of social understanding and spiritual concourse 
with Him, where our inborn affinities find their centre and rest. 
And what we earnestly want, we know that we shall assuredly 
find. The prophecy is in us, and whether we call ourselves 
prophets or not, we shall certainly go on to publish it. It is the 
inevitable, first fact of natural conviction with us. Do we not 
know, each one, that he is more than a thing or a wheel, and, 
being consciously a man, a spirit, a creature supernatural, will 
he hesitate to claim a place with such, and claim for such a 
place '? 



88 NATURE NOT THE SYSTEM OF GOD. 



CHAPTER III. 

NATUEE IS NOT THE SYSTEM OP GOD. THINGS AND POWERS, HOW 

RELATED. 

God is expressed btit not measured by his works ; least of all, 
by the substances and laws included under the general term 
Nature. And yet how liable are we, overpowered, as we often 
are, and oppressed by the magnitudes of nature, to suffer the 
impression that there can be nothing separate and superior be- 
yond nature. The eager mind of science, for example, sallying 
forth on excursions of thought into the vast abysses of worlds, 
discovering tracts of light that must have been shooting down- 
ward and away from their sources, even for millions of ages, to 
have now arrived at their mark ; and then discovering, also, that 
by such a reach of computation it has not penetrated to the 
centre, but only reached the margin or outmost shore of the vast 
fire-ocean, whose particles are astronomic worlds, falls back 
spent, and having as it were no spring left for another trial, or 
the endeavour of a stronger flight, surrenders over-mastered and 
helpless, crushed into silence. At such an hour it is anything 
but a wonder that nature is taken for the all, the veritable sys- 
tem of God ; beyond which, or collateral with which, there is 
nothing. For so long a time is science imposed upon by 
nature, not instructed by it ; as if there could be nothing 
greater than distance, measure, quantity, and show ; nothing 
higher than the formal platitude of things. But the healthy 
living mind will sooner or later recover itself. It will spring up 
out of this prostration before nature, to imagine other things 
which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor science computed. 
It will discover fires even in itself that flame above the stars. 
It will break over and through the narrow confines of stellar 
organization to conceive a spiritual Kosmos or divine system, 



NATURAL MAGNITUDES OPPRESSIVE. 39 

which contains and uses and is only shadowed in the faintest 
manner by the prodigious trivialities of external substance. 
Indeed, I think all minds unsophisticated by science or not dis- 
empowered by external magnitudes, will conceive God as a being 
whose fundamental plan, whose purpose, end, and system are 
nowise measured by that which lies in dimension, even though 
the dimensions be measureless. They will say with Zophar 
still, " The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and 
broader than the sea." And the real, proper universe of God, 
that which is to God the final cause of all things, will be to 
them a realm so far transcending the outward immensity, both in 
quantity and kind, that this latter will be scarcely more than 
some outer gate of approach, or eyelet of observation. 

What I propose, then, in the present chapter, coincidently 
with the strain of remark here indulged, is to undertake a 
negative, showing what, in fact, is decisive upon the whole 
question, that the surrender of so many minds to nature and 
her magnitudes is premature and weak ; that nature plainly is 
not, and cannot be, the proper and complete system of God ; or, 
if we speak no more of God, of the universe. 

It would seem that any really thoughtful person, when about 
to surrender himself to nature in the manner just described, 
must be detained by a simple glance at the manifest yearning of 
the human race, in all ages and nations, for something super- 
natural. Their affinity for objects supernatural is far more 
evident, as a matter of history, than for objects scientific and 
natural. Instead of reducing their gods and religions to the terms 
of nature, they have peopled nature with gods, and turned even 
their agriculture into a concert or concurrence with the unseen 
powers and their ministries. Witness, in this view, the im- 
mense array of mythologic and formally unrational religions, 
extinct or still existing, that have been accepted by the popula- 
tions of the world. Notice in particular also, that, when the 
keen dialectics of the polished Greeks and Romans had cut away 
the foundations of their religions, instead of lapsing into the cold 
no-religion of the Sophists, the cultivated mind of their scholars 
and philosophers passed straight by the boasted reason to lay 
hold of Christianity ; and Christianity, more rational but in no 
degree less supernatural than the religions overturned, was ac- 
cepted as the common faith. And what is not less remarkable, 



40 SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. 

Christianity itself, as if not supernatural enough, was corrupted 
by the addition of still new wonders pertaining to the virgin, 
the priesthood, the sacraments, and even the bones of the saints, 
indicated all, and some of them (such as that Mary is the Mother 
of God) generated even by dialectic processes. And so it ever 
has been. Men can as well subsist in a vacuum, or on a mere 
metallic earth, attended by no vegetable or animal products, as 
they can stay content with mere cause and effect, and the endless 
cycle of nature. They may drive themselves into it for the 
moment by their speculations ; but the desert is too dry and the 
air too thin — they cannot stay. Accordingly, we find that just 
now, when the propensities to mere naturalism are so manifold 
and eager, they are yet instigated in their eagerness itself by an 
impulse that scorns all the boundaries of mere knowledge and 
reason ; that is, by an appetite for things of faith, or a hope of 
yet fresher miracles and greater mysteries — gazing after the 
Boreal crown of Fourier, and the thawing out of the poles under 
the heat of so great felicity to come ; or watching at the gate of 
some third heaven to be opened by the magnetic passes, or the 
solemn incantations of the magic circles ; expecting an irrup- 
tion of demons, in the name of science, more fantastic than 
even that which plagued the world in the days of Christ, and 
which so many critics, in the name also of science, were just 
now labouring most intently to weed out of the gospel history. 
True, the magnetic revelations are said to be in the way of 
nature ; no matter for that, if only they are wonderful enough ; 
all the better, indeed, if they give us things supernatural to 
enjoy and live in without the name. Only we must have 
mysteries, and believe, and take wings, and fly clear of the dull 
level of comprehensible cause and substance somehow. Such 
is man — such are we all. 

We are like the poet Shelly, who, after he had sunk into 
blank atheism as regards religion, could not stay content, but 
began forthwith to people his brain and the world with griffins, 
and gorgons, and animated rings, and fiery serpents, and spirits 
of water and wind, and became, in fact, the most mythologic 
of all modern poets ; only that he made his mythologic 
machinery himself, out of the delirious shapes exhaled from 
the deep atheistic hunger of his soul. And the new Mormon 
faith, or fanaticism, that strangest phenomenon of our times — 
what is it, in fact, but a breaking loose by the human soul, 



NATURALISTIC LITERATURE. 41 

pressed down by ignorance and unbelief together, to find some 
element of miracle and mystery, in which it may range and 
feed its insatiable appetite ; a raw and truculent imposture of 
supernaturalism, dug up out of the earth but yesterday, which, 
just because it is not under reason and is held by no stays of 
opinion, kindles the fires of the soul's eternity to a pitch of 
fierceness and a really devastating energy ? And were the 
existing faith of powers unseen and worlds above the world of 
science blotted out, leaving us shut down under atheism or 
mere nature, and gasping in the dull vacuum it makes, I verily 
believe that we should instantly begin to burst up all into 
Mormonism, or some other newly-invented faith no better 
authenticated. 

Into this same gasping state, in fact, we are thrown by our 
new school of naturalistic literature, and we can easily dis- 
tinguish, in the conscious discontent that nullifies both our 
pleasure and praise, the fact of some transcendent inborn 
affinity, by which we are linked to things above the range of 
mere nature. Who is a finer master of English than Mr 
Emerson ? Who offers fresher thoughts in shapes of beauty 
more fascinating ? Intoxicated by his brilliant creations, the 
reader thinks, for the time, that he is getting inspired. And 
yet, when he has closed the essay or the volume, he is surprised 
to find — who has ever failed to notice it ? — that he is disabled 
instead, disempowered, reduced in tone. He has no great 
thought or purpose in him ; and the force or capacity for it 
seems to be gone. Surely it is a wonderfully clear atmosphere 
that he is in, and yet it is somehow mephitic ! How could it 
be otherwise ? As it is a first principle that water will not 
rise above its own level, what better reason is there to expect 
that a creed which disowns duty and turns achievement into a 
conceit of destiny, will bring to man those great thoughts, and 
breathe upon him in those gales of impulse which are necessary 
to the empowered state, whether of thought or of action ? 
Grazing in the field of nature is not enough for a being whose 
deepest affinities lay hold of the supernatural and reach after 
God. Airy and beautiful the field may be, shown by so great 
a master ; full of goodly prospects and fascinating images ; 
but, without a living God, and objects of faith, and terms of 
duty, it is a pasture only — nothing more. Hence the unreadi- 
ness, the almost aching incapacity felt to undertake anything 



42 THE HOST IN OPPOSITION 

or become anything by one who has taken lessons at this 
school. Nature is the all, and nature will do everything, 
whether we will or no. Call it duty, greatness, heroism, still 
it is hers, and she will have more of it when she pleases. If, 
then, nature does not set him on also, and do all in him, there 
is an end. What can he expect to do in the name of duty, 
faith, sacrifice, and high resolve, when nature is not in the 
plan ? What better, indeed, is there left him, or more efficient, 
than just to think beautiful thoughts if he can, and surrender 
himself to the luxury of watching the play of his own reflec- 
tive egoism ? Given Brama for a god and a religion, what is 
left us more certainly than that we ourselves become Asiatics ? 
Such kind of influence would turn the race to pismires, if only 
we could stay content in it, as happily we cannot ; for if we 
chance to find our pleasure in it for an hour, a doom as strong 
as eternity in us compels us finally to spurn it as a brilliant 
inanity. 

But we are going further with our point than we intended. 
Admitting the universal tendency of the race in past ages to a 
faith in things supernatural, it may be imagined by some that, 
as we advance in culture, we must finally reach a stage where 
reason will enforce a different demand ; they may even return 
upon us the list we gave in our introductory chapter, of the 
parties now conspiring the overthrow of a supernatural faith, 
requiring us to accept them as proofs that the more advanced 
stage of culture is now about to be reached. In that case it is 
enough to answer that the naturalizing habit of our times is 
clearly no indication of any such new stage of advancement, 
but only a phase of social tendency once before displayed in the 
negative and destructive era of the Greek and Roman religions ; 
also that the grand conspiracy exhibited in our own time, sig- 
nifies much less than it would, if after all there were any real 
agreement among the parties. Thus it will be found that while 
they seem to agree in the assumption that nature includes every- 
thing, and also to show by their imposing air of concert that, 
in this way the world must needs gravitate, there is yet, if we 
scan them more carefully, no such agreement as indicates any 
solid merit in their opinion, or even such as may properly entitle 
them to respect. 

Thus we find, first of all, a threefold distribution among them 
that sets them in as many schools or tiers, between which there 



ALSO CONTRADICT EACH OTHER. 43 

is almost nothing in common ; one section or school maintain- 
ing that nature is God, another that it is originally the work 
of God, and a third that there is no God. If nature itself is 
God, then plainly God is not the Creator of nature by his own 
sovereign act ; and if there is no God, then he is neither nature 
nor its Creator. Their agreement, therefore, includes nothing 
but a point of denial respecting the supernatural, maintained 
for wholly opposite and contradictory reasons. So as regards 
religion itself ; to some it is a natural effect or growth in souls, 
and in that view a fact that evinces the real sublimity of 
nature ; while to others it is itself a matter only of contempt, 
a creation of priestly artifice, or an excrescence of blind super- 
stition. One, again, believes in the personality, responsibility, 
and immortality of souls, finding a moral government in nature, 
and even what he calls a gospel ; another, that man is a mere 
link in the chain of causalities, like the insects, responsibility a 
fiction, eternity a fond illusion ; and still another that, being a 
mere link in the chain of causalities, he will yet for ever be, 
and be happy in the consciousness that he is. The contrarieties, 
in short, are endless, and accordingly the weight of their apparent 
concert, when set against the general vote and appetite of the 
race for something supernatural, is wholly insignificant. If it 
be a token of advancing culture, it certainly is not any token 
that a wiser age of reason or scientific understanding is yet 
reached ; and the grand major vote of the race for a super- 
natural faith is nowise weakened by it. Still it is a fact, the 
universal fact of history, that man is a creature of faith, and 
cannot rest in mere nature and natural causality. Nothing 
will content him in the faith that nature is the all or universal 
system of being. 

But the indications we discover within the realm of nature, 
or of cause and effect, are more striking even than those which 
we discover in the demonstrations of our own history. We 
have spoken of a system supernatural, superior to the system 
of nature, and subordinating always the latter to itself; under- 
standing, however, that both together in the truest and most 
proper sense constitute the real universal system of God. Now, 
as if to show us the possibility, and familiarize to us the fact 
of a subordination thus of one system and its laws to the uses 
and superior behests of another, we have in the domain of 



44 NATURE ITSELF OFFERS TYPES 

nature herself, two grand systems of chemistry, or chemical 
force and action ; one of which comes down upon the other, 
always from without, to dominate over it, decomposing substances 
which the other has composed, producing substances which the 
other could not. We speak here, it will be understood, of what 
is called inorganic chemistry and vital chemistry, the chemistry 
of matter out of life or below it, and of that which is in it and 
by it. The lives that construct and organize the bodies they 
inhabit, are the highest forms of nature, and are set in nature 
as types of a yet higher order of existence ; viz., spirit or free 
intelligence. They are immaterial, having neither weight nor 
dimensions of their own ; and what is yet closer to mind, they 
act by no dynamic force or impulsion, but from themselves ; 
coming down upon matter as architects and chemists, to do 
their own will, as it were, upon the raw matter and the dead 
chemistry of the world. We say not that they have in truth a 
will ; they only have a certain plastic instinct by which their 
dominating chemistry is actuated, and their architectural forms 
are supplied. We have thus a world immaterial within the 
boundaries of cause and effect; for the plastic instinct has 
causes of action in itself, and acts under a necessity as absolute 
as the inorganic forces. It belongs to nature and not to the 
supernatural, because it is really in the chain of cause and effect, 
and is only a quasi power. The manner of working in these 
plastic chemistries no science can discover, and their products 
no science can imitate. Elements that are united by tbo laws 
of matter they will somehow resolve and separate, and elements 
which no laws of matter have ever united, they will bring into 
a mystic union, congenial to their own forms and uses. Thus, 
in place of a few distinct substances we should have were the 
earth left to its pure metallic state, invaded by none of these 
myrmidons of life and the chemistries they bring with them, we 
have provided for our use immense varieties of substances which 
cannot even be recounted — woods, meats, bones, oils, wools, 
furs, grains, gums, spices, sweets, the fruits, the medicines, the 
grasses, the flowers, the odours — representatives all of so many 
lives working in the clay to produce what none but their 
external chemistry entering into the clay in silent sovereignty 
can summon it to yield. They are types in nature of the 
supernatural and its power to subordinate the laws of nature. 
They come as God's mute prophets, throwing down their rods 



OF SUPERNATURAL AGENCY, 45 

apon the ground as Moses did, that we may see their quicken- 
ing and believe. We do believe that they contain a higher 
tier of chemical forces, superior to the lower tier of forces in 
the dead matter, and we are nowise shocked by the miracle 
when we see them quicken the dead matter into life, and work 
it by their magic power into substances whose affinities were not 
inherent in the matter, but in the subtle chemists of vitality by 
whom they were fashioned. 

Nothing is better understood, for example, than that the three 
elements of the sugar principle have no discoverable affinity by 
which they unite, and that no utmost art of science has ever 
been able under the inorganic laws of matter to unite them. 
They never do unite, save by the imposed chemistry of the 
sugar-making lives. And so it is of all vegetable and animal 
substances. They exist because the system of vital chemistries 
is gifted with a qualified sovereignty over the system of in- 
organic chemistry. And it would seem as if it was the special 
design of God, in this triumph of the lives over the mineral 
order and its laws, to accustom us to the fact of a subordination 
of causes, and make us so familiar with it as to start no 
scepticism in us, when the sublimer fact of a supernatural 
agency in the affairs of the world is discovered or revealed. 
For, if the secret workings, the dissolvings, distillations, absorp- 
tions, conversions, compositions, continually going on about us 
and within, could be definitely shown, there is not anything in 
all the mythologies of the race, the doings of the gods, the 
tricks of fairies, the spells and transformations of the wizard 
powers, that can even approach the real wonders of fact here 
displayed. And yet we apprehend no breach or suspension of 
the laws of dead matter in the manifest subordination they 
suffer; on the contrary, we suppose that the dead matter is 
thus subordinated, in a certain sense, through and by its own 
laws. As little reason have we to apprehend a breach upon 
the laws of nature in one of Christ's miracles. Whatever yields 
to Him yields by its own laws, and not otherwise. So signifi- 
cant is the lesson given us by these myrmidons of life that are 
filling the world with their activity, preparing it to their uses, 
and transforming it — otherwise a desert — into a frame of 
habitable order and beauty. 

It is remarkable that even Dr Strauss takes note of this 
same peculiarity observable in the works of nature. " It is true," 



46 AS DR STRAUSS CANDIDLY ADMITS. 

lie says, " that single facts and groups of facts, with their con- 
ditions and processes of change, are not so circumscribed as to 
be unsusceptible of external influence ; for the action of one 
existence or kingdom in nature trenches on that of another; 
human freedom controls natural development, and material 
laws react on human freedom. Nevertheless, the totality of 
finite things forms a vast circle, which, except that it owes its 
existence and laws to a superior power, suffers no intrusion 
from without. This conviction is so much a habit of thought 
with the modern world, that in actual life the belief in a super- 
natural manifestation, an immediate divine agency, is at once 
attributed to ignorance or imposture." 1 But, what if it should 
happen that above this "totality of things" there is a grand 
totality superior to things ? Wherein is it more incredible 
that this higher totality should exert a subordinating " external 
influence" on the whole of things, than that " one kingdom in 
nature trenches on another?" Why may not men, angels, 
Grod, subordinate and act upon the whole of what is properly 
called nature ? and what are all the organific powers in nature 
doing but giving us a type of the truth to make it familiar ? 
And then how little avails the really low appeal from such a 
testimony to the current unbeliefs and crudities of a superficial, 
coarse -minded, unthinking world ? It is not these which can 
convict such opinions of "ignorance or imposture." Had this 
writer, on the contrary, observed that the subordination of one 
kingdom of nature and its laws to the action of another, covers 
all the difficulties of the question of miracles, he could have 
had some better title to the name of a philosopher. 

Meantime, while we are familiarized in this manner with the 
subordination of one system of laws and forces to another, and 
prepared to admit the possibility, if we should not rather say 
forewarned of the actual existence of another system above 
nature subordinating that, we also meet with arguments in- 
corporated in the works of nature that have a sturdier signi- 
ficance, rising up, as it were, to confront those coarse and 
truculent forms of scepticism, on which, probably, the finer tokens 
just referred to would be lost. The atheist denies the existence 
of any being or power above nature ; the pantheist does the 
same — only adding that nature is God, and entitled in some 
sense to the honour of religion. Now, to show the existence of 

J Life of Jesus* vol. i. p. 71. 



GEOLOGY FURNISHES ANOTHER PROOF. 47 

a God supernatural, a God so far separated from nature and 
superior to it as to act on the chain of natural cause and effect 
from without the chain, the new science of geology comes 
forward, lays open her stone registers, and points us to the very 
times and places where the 'creative hand of God was inserted 
into the world, to people it with creatures of life. Thus it is 
an accepted or established fact in geology, that our planet was, 
at some remote period, in a molten or fluid state, by reason of 
the intense heat of its matter. Emerging from this state by a 
gradual cooling process, there could of course be no seeds in it 
and no vestiges or germs of animal life. It is only a vast 
cinder, in fact, just now* a little cooled on the surface, but still 
red hot within. And yet the registers show, beyond the 
possibility even of a doubt, that the cinder was in due time 
and somehow peopled with creatures of life. Whence came they 
or the germs of which they sprang ? Out of the fire or out of 
the cinder ? The fire would exterminate them all in a minute 
of time ; and it will be difficult to imagine that the cinder, the 
mere metallic matter of the world, has any power to resolve 
itself under its material laws, into reproductive and articulated 
forms of life. 

Again, these ancient registers of rock record the fact. that, 
here and there, some vast fiery cataclysm broke loose, submerg- 
ing and exterminating a great part of the living tribes of the 
world, after which came forth new races of occupants, more 
numerous, and many of them higher and more perfect in their 
forms of organization. Whence came these ? By what power 
ever discovered in nature were they invented, composed, articu- 
lated, and set breathing in the air and darting through the 
waters of the world ? 

Finally, man appears, last and most perfect of all the living 
forms ; for, while so many successive orders and types of living 
creatures, vegetable and animal, show us their remains in the 
grand museum of the rocks, no vestige, or bone, or sign of man 
has ever yet been discovered there. Therefore here, again, the 
question returns, whence came the lordly occupant ? Where 
was he conceived ? In what alembic of nature was he dis- 
tilled ? By what conjunction of material causes was he raised 
up to look before and after, and be the investigator of all 
causes ? 

Having now these facts of new production before us, we are 



48 IT REFUTES 

obliged to admit some power out of nature and above it, which, 
by acting on the course of nature, started the new forms of 
organized life, or fashioned the germs out of which they sprang. 
To enter on a formal discussion of the theory, so ambitiously 
attempted by some of the naturalists, by which they are ascribed 
to the laws of mere nature, or to natural development, would 
carry me farther into the polemics of geology and zoology than 
the limits of my present argument will suffer. I will only notice 
two or three of the principal points of this development theory, 
in which it is opposed by insurmountable facts. 1 

First of all, it requires us to believe that the original germs 
of organic life may be and were developed out of matter by its 
inorganic forces. If so, why are no new germs developed now ? 
and why have we no well-attested facts of the kind ? Some few 
pretended facts we have, but they are too loosely made out to 
be entitled, for a moment, to our serious belief. Never yet has 
it been shown that any one germ of vegetable or animal life has 
been developed by the existing laws of nature, without some 
egg or germ previously supplied to start the process. Besides, 
it is inconceivable that there is a power in the metallic and 
earthy substances, or atoms, however cunningly assisted by 
electricity, to generate a seed or egg. If we ourselves cannot 
even so much as cast a bullet without a mould, how can these 
dead atoms and blind electric currents, without any matrix, or 
even governing type, weave the filaments and cast the living 
shape of an acorn, or any smallest seed ? There can be no 
softer credulity than the scepticism which, to escape the need 
of a creative miracle, resorts to such a faith as this. 

But, supposing it possible, or credible, that certain germs of 
life may have been generated by the inorganic forces, the de- 
velopment scheme has it still on hand to account for the exist- 
ence of man. That he is thus composed in full size and 
maturity is impossible ; he must be produced, if at all, in the 
state of infancy. Two suppositions, then, are possible, and 
only two ; and we find the speculations of the school vibrating 
apparently between them. First, that there is a slow process 
of advance in order, through which the lowest forms of life 

1 Whoever wishes to see this suhject handled more scientifically and in a most mas- 
terly manner, may consult the " Essay on Classification," prefixed to the great work 
of Mr Agassiz on Natural History, where the conceit that our animal and vegetable 
races were started in their several eras by physical agencies, without a creative Intel- 
ligence, is exploded so as to be for ever incapable of resuming even a pretence of 
reason. 



THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 49 

gradually develope those which are higher and more perfect, and 
finally culminate in man. Or, secondly, that there is a power 
in all vital natures, by which, at distant but proper intervals, 
they suddenly produce some order of being higher than they, 
much as we often see in those examples of propagation which 
we denominate, most unphilosophically, lusu& naturce, and that 
so, as the last and highest lusus, if that were a scientific con- 
ception, man appears ; being, in fact, the crown, or complete 
fulfilment, of that type of perfection which pertains to .all, even 
the lowest, forms of life. In one view the progress is a regular 
gradation ; in the other it is a progress by leaps or stages. 

As regards the former, it is a fatal objection that no such 
plastic, gradual movement of progress can be traced in the 
records of the geologic eras. All the orders, and genera, and 
species maintain their immovable distinctions ; and no trace 
can anywhere be discovered, whether there or in the now-living 
races, of organic forms that are intermediate and transitional. 
Tokens may be traced in the rocks of a transitional develop- 
ment in some given kind or species, as of the gradual process 
by which a frog is developed ; but there is no trace of organized 
being midway between the frog and the horse, or of any insect 
or fish, on its way to become a frog. Besides, it is wholly in- 
conceivable that there should be in rerum natura any kind of 
creature that is midway, or transitional, between the oviparous 
and mammal orders. Still further, if man is the terminal of a 
slow and plastic movement or advance, what has become of the 
forms next to man, just a little short of man ? They are not 
among the living nor among the dead. No trace of any such 
forms has ever been discovered by science. The monkey race 
have been set up as candidates for this honour. But, to say 
nothing of the degraded consciousness that can allow any crea- 
ture of language, duty, and reason, to speak of his near affinity 
with those creatures, what one of them is there that could ever 
raise a human infant ? And, if none, there ought to be some 
intermediate race, yet closer to humanity, that can do it. Where 
is this intermediate race ? 

Just this, too, is the difficulty we encounter in the second 
form of the theory. There neither is nor can be any middle 
position between humanity and no humanity. If the child, 
for child there must be, is human, the mother and father must 
either be human, or else mere animals. If they have not 



50 IT IS REFUTED, TOO, 

merely the power of using means to ends, but the necessary 
ideas, truth, right, cause, space, time, and also the faculty of 
language, that is, of receiving the inner sense of symbols, 
which is the infallible test of intelligence [intus lego], then they 
are human ; otherwise they are animals. No matter, then, 
how high they may be in their order ; their human child is a 
different form of being, with which, in one view, they have 
nothing in common. And he is, by the supposition, born a 
child ; the son of an animal, but yet a human child. And 
then the question rises, what animal is there, existing or con- 
ceivable, what accident, or power in nature, that can nurse or 
shelter from death, that feeblest and most helpless of all crea- 
tures, a human infant ? Neither do we find, as a matter of 
fact, that the animal races advance in their nursing and pro- 
tecting capacity, accordingly as they advance in the scale of 
organization. The nearest approach to that kind of tending 
and protective capacity, necessary to the raising of a human 
infant, anywhere discernible in the animal races, is found in 
the marsupial animals ; which are yet far inferior, as regards 
both intelligence and organization, to the races of dogs, ele- 
phants, and monkeys. Nay, the young salmon, hatched in the 
motherhood of the river, being cradled in the soft- waters, and 
having a small sack of food attached underneath, to support 
the first weeks of their infancy, are much better off in their 
nursing than these most advanced races. Any theory, in short, 
which throws a human child on the care of an animal parentage 
is too nearly absurd to require refutation. 

But there is a scientific reason against this whole theory 
of development, which appears to be irresistible, viz., that it 
inverts the order of causes, and makes exactly that which dis- 
tinguishes the fact of death, the author and cause of life. 
For it is precisely the wonder, as was just now shown, of the 
living creatures, or vital powers, that, instead of being under 
the laws of mineral substances, they are continually triumphing 
over them. Never do they fall under and submit to them, till 
they die, and this is death. Thus, when a little nodule of 
living matter, called an acorn, is placed in the ground, it takes 
occasion, so to speak, from its new conditions, begins to quicken, 
opens its ducts, starts its pumps into action, sets at work its 
own wondrous powers of chemistry, and labours on through 
whole centuries, composing and building on new lengths of 



BY OTHER REASONS. 51 

wood, till it has raised into the sky, against gravity and the 
laws of dead chemistry, a ponderous mass of many tons weight ; 
.there to stand, waving in triumph over the vanquished chemists 
of the ground, and against the raging storms of ages ; never to 
yield the victory till the life grows old by exhaustion. Having 
come now to the limit of its own vital nature, the tree dies ; 
whereupon the laws of inorganic matter, over which it had 
triumphed, fall at work upon it, in their turn, to dissolve it ; 
and, between them and gravity, pulling it down upon the 
ground, it is disintegrated and reduced to inorganic dust. Now, 
what the theory in question proposes is, that this same living 
nodule was originally developed, organized, and gifted with life 
by the laws of dead matter — laws that have themselves been 
vanquished, as regards their force, by its dominating sovereignty, 
and never have been able to do anything more than to dissolve 
it after it was dead. 

We are brought, then, to the conclusion, which no ingenuity 
of man can escape, that the successive races of living forms 
discovered by geology are fresh creations, by a power out of 
nature and above it acting on nature ; which, it will be remem- 
bered, is our definition of supernaturalism itself. And this 
plainly is no mere indication, but an absolute proof, that nature 
is not the complete system of God. Indeed, we may say, what 
might well enough be clear beforehand, that, if man is not from 
eternity, as geology proves beyond a question, then to imagine 
that mere dead earth, acted on by its chemical and electric 
forces, should itself originate sense, perception, thought, reason, 
conscience, heroism, and genius, is to assert, in the name of 
science, what is more extravagant than all the miracles even of 
the Hindoo mythology. 

There is yet another view of nature, at once closer at hand 
and more familiar, which demands a great deal more of atten- 
tion than it has received, from those who include all existence 
in the term. I speak of the conflicting and mutually destruc- 
tive elements known to be comprised in it. In one view, it 
appears to be a glorious and complete system of order; in 
another, a confused mixture of tumult and battle. One set of 
powers is continually destroying what another is, with equal 
persistency, creating ; and the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth in pain together. If, then, system is that which 
stands in the unity of reason, by what right are we able to call 



52 DISTINCTION RAISED 

nature a system ? That it is a system, or more properly part 
of a system, I do not question ; for the subjective unity of 
reason is an instinct so powerful in our nature, or so nearly 
sovereign over it, that we can never expel the faith of such 
unity, even when it is objectively undiscoverable. What I here 
insist upon is, that nature, granting the most that can be said 
of it as a system, is manifestly no complete system in itself. 
On the contrary, it takes on appearances, in all its manifesta- 
tions, that indicate the action in it, and upon it, of powers 
extraneous. It seems to be no complete thing in itself, other- 
wise it would flow in courses of order and harmony, without 
any such turbulence of conflict and mutual destruction as we 
now see. We even look upon it as a realm played upon by 
forces of mischief, mixed up somehow with the disorders of 
disobedient powers, or, at least, penally accommodated to then- 
state of sin, as it was originally subordinated to their uses. 
Most certain it is, that, if cause and effect are universal, and in 
that view a complete universal system, such as our pantheistic 
and other naturalizing writers pretend — subject to no outside 
action, subordinate to no other and higher tiers of existence — 
there could be no aspects of strife and tumult in the plan ; all, 
in such a case, must represent the necessary harmony and order 
of the system ; flowing together on, down the easy track of its 
silent, smooth eternity. As it is, then, we have manifestly no 
sufficient right to speak of system at all, in the proper and true 
meaning of the term, till we bring into the account existences 
above nature, such as have it in their way to will, and war, 
and bring in disorder, presupposing thus a plan that includes 
possibilities of strife and conflict. And then when we speak 
of system, it will be in the sense of the apostle, when, passing 
above the mere platitudes of things, he rises, in the manner 
already described, to the contemplation of invisible dominions 
and powers, and of Christ, their everlasting head, and says in- 
clusively of all created beings in heaven and in earth — "For 
in him all things consist." In his word "consist," [standing 
together], we have the essential and highest conception of 
system. Here is opened a glimpse of the true system of God ; 
anything less, or lower, or different, is only a fiction of science, 
and no truth. 

But we come to a point more positive and decisive, viz,, 



BETWEEN POWERS AND THINGS. 53 

that we do positively know existences that cannot be included 
in nature, but constitute a higher range, empowered to act upon 
it. This higher range we are ourselves, as already shown by 
our definition of nature and the supernatural in the last chapter. 
By that definition we are now prepared to assume and formally 
assign the grand twofold distinction of tilings and persons, or 
things and powers. All free intelligences, it was shown, the 
created and the uncreated, are, as being free, essentially super- 
natural in their action ; having all, in the matter of their will, 
a power transcending cause and effect in nature, by which they 
are able to act on the lines and vary the combinations of natural 
causalities. They differ, in short, from everything that classes 
under the term nature, in the fact that they act from them- 
selves, uncaused in their action. They are powers, not things ; 
the radical idea of a power being that of an agent, or force, 
which acts from itself, uncaused, initiating trains of effect that 
flow from itself. 

Of the two great classes, therefore, named in our distribution, 
one comprehends all beings that are able to originate new trains 
of effects — these are the Powers ; and the other is made up of 
such as can only propagate effects under certain fixed laws — 
these are Things. At the head of one class we conceive is God, 
as Lord of Hosts ; who, in virtue of his all-originating power as 
Creator, is called the First Cause ; having round Him innumer- 
able orders of intelligence which, though caused to exist by Him, 
are as truly first causes in their action as He, — starting all 
their trains of consequences in the same manner. In the other 
class we have the immens3 catalogue of what are called the 
natural sciences, — the astronomical bodies, the immaterial forces, 
the fluids and solids of the world, the elements and atoms of 
chemistry, the dynamics of life and instinct, — in all of which, 
what are called causes are only propagations of effects under and 
by fixed laws. Hence they are second causes only ; that is, 
causes whose causations are determined by others back of them ; 
never, in any sense, originative or first causes. The complete- 
ness of the distribution will be yet more clear, and the immense 
abyss of distance between the two orders or classes more visibly 
impassable, if we add such points of contrast as the following : — 

Powers, acting in liberty, are capable of a double action, — to do 
or not to do (God, for example, in creating man, man in sinning) ; 
things can only act in one way, viz., as their law determines. 



M POWERS ARE THE 

Powers are perfectible only by exercise after they are made ; 
things are perfect as made. 

Powers are perfected, or established in their law, only by a 
schooling of their consent ; things are under a law mechanical at 
the first, having no consent. 

Powers can violate the present or nearest harmony, moving- 
disorder in it ; things are incapable of disorder, save as they are 
disordered by the malign action of powers. 

Powers, governed by the absolute force or fiat of omnipotence, 
would in that fact be uncreated and cease ; things exist and 
act only in and by the impulsion of that fiat. 

We have thus drawn out and set before us two distinct 
ordoi's and degrees of being, which, together, constitute the real 
universe. So perfectly diverse are they in kind, that no com- 
mon terms of law or principle can, for one moment, be imagined 
to include them both ; they can be one system only in some 
higher and broader sense, which subordinates one to the other, 
or both to the same final causes. One thing is thus made clear, 
viz., that nature is not, in any proper sense, the universe. We 
know that it is not, because we find another kind of existence in 
ourselves, which consciously does not fall within the terms of 
nature. Probably the disciples of naturalism will make answer 
to this course of argument, by complaining that we gain our 
point thus easily by means of our definition, which definition is 
arbitrary, — drawing a distinction between nature and the super- 
natural, or between things and powers that is not usual. 
Whether it be usual or not is not the question, but whether it is 
grounded in reality and witnessed immediately by our own con- 
sciousness. If it has been the prime sophism of the naturalists 
to assume the universality of nature, and still more, if they have 
carried the assumption so far as to hold, in fact and even formally, 
that men are only things, — under the same laws of eternal 
necessity with things, and equally incapable of obligation, thus 
a part of the system of universal nature, — we certainly have as 
good a right to raise definitions that meet the truth of conscious- 
ness, as they to overlook and hide them in plain defiance of 
consciousness. There may be something fatal in such definitions, 
but there certainly is nothing arbitrary. 

Receiving it now as a truth sufficiently established that nature, 
or the realm of things, is not the system of the universe, that 
there is beside a realm of powers, it is difficult to close the 



PRINCIPAL MAGNITUDES. 55 

survey taken, without glancing for a moment at the relative 
weight and consequence of the two realms. When such a ques- 
tion is raised, there are many who will have it as their feeling, 
whether they say it in words or not, that the world of things 
preponderates in magnitude ; for what are we doing, a great 
part of us, whether men of action or men of science, but chasing 
the shows of our senses, and magnifying their import by the 
stimulation of our egregious idolatry ? And yet it would seem 
that any most extempore glance at the world of powers would 
suffice to correct us, and set the realm of things, vast as it is, in 
a very humble place. First, we recognize in the grand inven- 
tory our own human race. We call them persons, spirits, souls, 
minds, intelligences, free agents, and we see them moving out 
from nature and above it consciously superior ; streaming into 
it in currents of causality from themselves ; subduing it, develop- 
ing or detecting its secret laws, harnessing its forces, and using 
it as the pliant instrument of their will ; first causes all, in a 
sense, and springs of action, side by side with the Creator, 
whose miniatures they are, whose footsteps they distinguish, 
and whose recognition they naturally aspire to. Next adjacent 
to these we have the intelligent powers of the astronomic worlds, 
and all the outlying populations of the sky ; so numerous that 
we shall best conceive their number, not by counting the stars 
and increasing the census obtained by some factor or multiplier 
greater than the mind can definitely grasp, but by imagining 
the stellar spaces of infinity itself interfused and filled with their 
prodigious tides of life and motion. All these like us are crea- 
tures of admiration, science, will, and duty ; able to search out 
the invisible in the visible, and find the footsteps of God in 
his works. Then again, also, we recognize a vast and gloriously- 
populated realm of angels and departed spirits, who, when they 
are sent, minister unseen about us ; mixed, we know not how, 
in the surroundings of our state, with unsaintly and demoniacal 
powers of mischief, not sent not suffered even to come, save 
when they are attracted by the low affinities we offer as open 
gates to their coming. To which, also, we are to add those un- 
known, dimly-imagined orders of intelligences, of which we are 
notified in the terms of revelation, — seraphim, living creatures, 
thrones, authorities, dominions, principalities, and powers. 

Now all these living armies or hosts of God, and God the 
Lord of Hosts, capable of character, society, duty, love, — 



66 tfATUBE A FIELD FOR THEIR EXERCISE. 

creators all, in a sense, of things that otherwise could never he, 
first causes all of their own acts and doings, ahle to adom 
what is, and contrive what is not, and carry up the worlds 
themselves in ascending scales of improvement, — can we look 
on these and imagine that nature includes the principal sum 
and constitutes the real system of being ? Are not these other 
forms of being the transcendent forms ; and if we will inventory 
the universe, are they not all, in fact, that gives it an assignable 
value ? If God Himself be a real existence, what is He by 
the supposition, but the major term of all existence, — the all- 
containing substance, a being so great that we scarcely need 
refer to the free populations just named, to sink all that is 
below Him, and is called nature, into comparative insignificance. 
But, when we regard Him as the uncreated power at the head 
of His immense family of powers, all systematized or sought to 
be systematized, all perfect in good or else to be perfected under 
one law, viz., the eternal, necessary, immutable law of right, — 
a law which He first of all accepts Himself, in which His own 
character of beauty and truth and even His felicity is based, 
and which therefore He ordains for all, to be the condition of 
their character, as of His own, building nature itself to it, as a 
field of exercise and trial ; then do we, for once, catch a true 
glimpse of the significance of nature. It is no more that 
universe the philosophers speak of ; it is raised in dignity by 
the relation it fills, and, for a like reason, sunk in quantity to 
comparative nothingness. Its distances no longer occupy us ; 
its magnitudes appal us no more ; the astronomic splendours 
are tinsel ; nothing is solid, or great, or high, but those tran- 
scendent powers whose eternities are the main substances of the 
worlds. Nature, in short, is only stage, field, medium, vehicle, 
for the universe ; that is, for God and His powers. These are 
the real magnitudes ; because they contain at once the import 
and the final causes, or last ends, of all created substance. The 
grand, universal, invisible system of God, therefore, is a system 
that centralizes itself in these, subordinating all mere things, 
and having them for its instruments. For the serving and 
training of these, He loosens the bands of Orion and tempers 
the sweet influences of Pleiades ; spreading out the heavens 
themselves, not for the heavens' sakes, but as a tent for these 
to dwell in. Is it anything new that the tent is a thing less 
solid and of meaner consequence than the occupant ? 



PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE. ar 



CHAPTER IV. 

PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE, AS RELATED TO THE FAG? OV EVJI -,-. 

We have reached a summit now, where a wider prospect 
opens, and God's true system begins to reveal its outlines. 
Nature, intelligently defined, is not, as we have seen, that 
system, but only a subordinate and humble member of it. The 
principal existences are not the things or magnitudes which 
science has for its subjects, but those everlasting populations of 
powers that inhabit the realm of things and do their will upon 
it. The real universe invests, or takes in nature, even as the 
blooming and succulent peach gathers its fruity parts, its fibres, 
veins, and circulating juices, about the nut or stone. Scientifi- 
cally speaking, both parts together constitute the real unity of 
the peach. But, if any one should claim this distinction for 
the stone, because of its stability, and because it is a point of 
inherence and a basis of reaction for the vascular and fleshy 
parts, it would be a good and sufficient reply that, practically, 
or as regarding considerations of value, the fruity part is all ; 
and that, when we name the peach, we commonly do not so 
much as think of the stone, either as being or not being 
included. So it is with cause and effect, laws and instincts, 
all that we eall nature ; it is not the system of God, and is 
really no co-ordinate part of his universe, considered as related 
to the powers that have their society in it and get their reactions 
from it. They are the universe, practically, themselves ; only 
having nature as their field and the tool-house of their instru- 
mentations. 

Regarding them now as powers, and so as the grand reality 
of God's universal system, let us consider more carefully what 
their relations are to the natural forces and the general order 



58 POWERS NOT MANAGEABLE BY OMNIPOTENCE. 

of the system. They cannot, by the supposition, be operated 
under laws of causation, or be in any sense included in the order 
of nature. As little admissible is it, supposing the strict 
originality of their actions, and regarding them as properly first 
causes each of his own, that they are subject to any direct con- 
trol or impulsion of omnipotence. We set no limits, when we 
thus speak, to omnipotence ; we only say that omnipotence is 
force, and that nothing in the nature of force is applicable to the 
immediate direction or determination of powers. At a remove 
one or more degrees distant, force may concern itself in the 
adjustment of means, influences, and motivities related to choice ; 
or, by spiritual permeations, it may temper and sway that side 
of the soul which is under the control of laws, and so may raise 
motivities of thought and feeling within the soul itself; but the 
will, the man himself as a power, is manageable only in a moral 
way ; that is, by authority, truth, justice, beauty, that which 
supposes obligation or command. And this, again, supposes a 
consenting obedience, and this a power of non-consent, without 
which the consent were insignificant. Which power of non- 
consent, it will be observed, is a power also of deviation or 
disobedience, and no one can show beforehand that, having such 
a power, the subject will not some time use it. 

So far the possibility of evil appears to be necessarily involved 
in the existence of a realm of powers : whether it shall also be a 
fact, depends on other considerations yet to be named. One of 
the most valued and most triumphantly asserted arguments of 
our new school of Sophists is dismissed, in this manner, at the 
outset. God, they say, is omnipotent, and, being omnipotent, He 
can, of course, do all things. If, therefore, He chooses to have 
no sin or disobedience, there will be no sin or disobedience ; and 
if we fall on what is sin to us, it will only be a form of good to 
Him, and would be also to us, if we could see far enough to 
comprehend the good. The argument is well enough, in case 
men are things only and not powers ; but if God made them to 
be powers, they are, by the supposition, to act as being uncaused 
in their action, which excludes any control of them by Gocb's 
omnipotent force, and then what becomes of the argument ? 
Omnipotence may be exerted, as we just said, one degree farther 
off, or in that department of the soul which is under conditions of 
nature ; but it does not follow that any changes of view, feeling, 
motive, wrought in this manner, will certainly suffice to keep 



NO LIMITATION OF OMNIPOTENCE. 59 

any being in the right, when he is so far a power that he can 
even choose the weakest and most worthless motive — as we 
consciously do in every wrong act of our lives. 

We dismiss, in the same short manner, the sweeping inferences 
a certain crude -minded class of theologians are accustomed to 
draw from the omnipotence of God. They take the word 
" omnipotence" in the same undiscerning and coarse way, as if 
it followed indubitably that a being omnipotent can do everything 
he really wishes to have done ; and then the conclusion is not 
far off that God,, for some inscrutable reason, wants sin, wants 
misery — else why do they exist ? — therefore that the existence 
of sin and misery supposes no real breach of order, and that, 
when they come, they fall into the regular train of God's ideal 
harmony, as exactly as any of the heavenly motions or chemi- 
cal attractions. All such idolaters of the force -principle in God 
will, of course, be abundantly shocked by what appears to be a 
limit on the sway or sufficiency of their idol. And yet, even 
they will be advancing unconsciously, every day of their lives, 
something which implies a limitation as real as any they com- 
plain of. Thus, how often will they say, without suspecting 
any such implication, that God could not forgive sin without a 
ransom, and could not provide a ransom save by the incarnate 
life and death of His Son. Why not, if He is omnipotent ? 
Cannot omnipotence do everything ? This very question, 
indeed, of the seeming limitation of God's omnipotence, im- 
plied in the sacrifice of Christ, was the precise difficulty which 
Anselm, in his famous treatise, undertook to solve. He states 
it thus : — " To show for what necessity and cause God, who is 
omnipotent, should have assumed the littleness and weakness of 
human nature for the sake of its renewal;" x or, as he had just 
been saying, 2 how He did this to restore the world, when, for 
aught that appears, " He might have done it merely by His will." 

The difficulty was real, no doubt, to a certain class of minds 
in his time ; but to another class, enthralled by no such crudities 
in respect to force, it never was or could be any difficulty at all. 
As little room for question is there in our doctrine, when we say 
that a realm of powers is not, by the supposition, to be go- 
verned as a realm of things, that is, by direct omnipotence ; for 
we mean by omnipotence, not power, in the sense of influ- 
ence or moral impression, but mere executive force ; we mean 

l Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xi. p. 737. 2 Ibid. p. 736. 



60 IN A KINGDOM O* POWEKS, 

that God, as being omnipotent, is in force to do all that force 
can do — this and nothing more. But force has no relation to 
the doing of many things. It can overturn mountains, roll 
back the sea, or open a way through it ; but manifestly it has 
nothing to do in the direct impulsion of a soul ; for a soul is a 
power, capable of character and responsibility, as being clear of 
all causation, and acting by its own free self- impulsion. There- 
fore, to say that powers, or free agents cannot be swayed abso- 
lutely by omnipotent force, is only to deny the applicability of 
such force, not to place it under limitation. It might as well 
be called a limitation of the force of an army, to say that it can- 
not compute an eclipse or write an epic ; or that of an earth- 
quake, to say that it cannot shake a demonstration of Euclid. 

The doctrine I am stating involves, in fact, no limitation of 
the power of God at all. It only shows that the reason of 
God's empire excludes, at a certain point, the absolute dominion 
of force. Nor is it anything new, more than in the question 
of Anselm above referred to, that the force of God consents to 
the sovereignty of his eternal reason and the counsel of wisdom 
in his purposes. 

But it will be peremptorily required of us at this point to 
answer another question, viz., Why God should have created a 
realm of powers or free agents if they must needs be capable, in 
this manner, of wrong and misery ; without acknowledging, for 
one moment, that I am responsible for the answer of any such 
question, and denying explicitly the right of any mortal to dis- 
allow or discredit any act of God because he cannot comprehend 
the reason of it, I will simply say in reply, that it is enough for 
me to be allowed the simple hypothesis that God preferred to have 
powers and not things only ; because He loves character, and, 
apart from this, cares not for all the mere things that can be 
piled in the infinitude of space itself, even though they be 
diamonds ; because, in bestowing on a creature the perilous 
capacity of character, he bestows the highest possibility of 
wealth and glory ; a capacity to know, to love, to enjoy, to be 
consciously great and blessed in the participation of his own 
divinity and character. For if all the orbs of heaven were so 
many solid Koh-i-noors glittering eternally in the sun, what 
were they either to themselves or to Him ; or if they should roll 
eternally undisturbed in the balance of their attractions, what 
were they to each other ? Is it any impeachment of God that 



EVIL INHERENTLY POSSIBLE. 61 

he did not care to reign over an empire of stones ? If He has 
deliberately chosen a kind of empire not to be ruled by force, if 
He has deliberately set His children beyond that kind of control, 
that they may be governed by truth, reason, love, want, fear, 
and the like, acting through their consent ; if we find them able 
to act even against the will of God, as stones and vegetables 
cannot, what more is necessary to vindicate His goodness than 
to suggest that He has given them, possibly, a capacity to break 
allegiance, in order that there may be a meaning and a glory in 
allegiance, when they choose it ? 

There is, then, such a thing inherent in the system of powers 
as a possibility of wrong ; for, given the possibility of right, we 
have the possibility of wrong. And it may, for aught that 
appears, be the very plan itself of God to establish his powers 
in the right, by allowing them an experiment of the wrong, in 
which to school their liberty ; bringing them up again out of 
its bitterness, by a delivering process, to shun it with an in- 
telligent and forever fixed abhorrence afterward. And then, if 
this should be his plan, what an immense complication of acts, 
events, processes, contrarieties, and caprices, must be involved 
in it. Nature, considered as the mere run of cause and effect, 
is simple as a Jew's harp. But here we have a grand concilium 
or republic of wills, acting each for himself, and in that capa- 
city to be trained, governed, turned about and about, and finally 
brought up into the harmony of a consenting choice and a com- 
mon love and character. The system will be one that syste- 
matizes the caprices and discords of innumerable wills, and 
works results of order through endless complications of disorder ; 
having, in this fact, its real wisdom and magnificence. Thus 
how meagre an affair to thought were our American Kepublic, 
if it were nothing but the run of causes in the climate and soil, 
and the mere physiology of the men ; but when it is considered 
as containing so many wills, acting all from themselves, incom- 
putable in their action because they are uncaused in it ; reducing 
so many mixtures of contrarieties and discords to a beautiful 
resultant order and social unity ; striving still on, by the force 
of its organic nisus, toward a condition of historic greatness 
hitherto unknown to the world — considered thus, how truly 
sublime and wonderful a creation does it appear to be ! And 
vet there are many who cannot imagine that God has any sys- 



62 THE PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE 

tern or law, in His great republic of freedom, if there be any 
discord, any contrariety, any infringement of His mandates, any 
disturbance of nature ; or, indeed, if He does not really impel 
and do everything Himself by His own immediate and absolute 
causation. Whereas, if they could rise above the feeble conceit 
by which they make the force of God their idol, they would see 
that possibly it may be the highest point of grandeur in his sys- 
tem ; that it systematizes powers transcending nature, and even 
disorders in the field of nature itself. 

Or, if it be objected that the admission or fact of such dis- 
orders -annihilates the unity of God's empire, leaving it in a 
fragmentary, cloven state, which excludes the scientific idea of 
a proper universe, it is a good and sufficient answer that God's 
unities are all, in the last degree, unities of end, or counsel as 
related to end ; consisting never in a perfect concert of parts or 
elements, but in a comprehensive order that takes up and 
tempers to its own purposes many antagonisms. What, in fact, 
is the order of heaven, or even the atomic order of particles, 
but a resultant of the eternal strife by which they are insti- 
gated ? What then, if the powers are able to break loose, and 
do, from obligation ; when the system or plan of God is made 
large enough to include such a breaking loose, and deep enough 
in counsel, from the beginning, to handle it in terms of sovereign 
order ? The higher unity is not gone because discord has come 
in points below, and would not be even if the discord were 
eternal. Still it remains, comprehends everything, moving still 
on its ends, as little diverted or disturbed as if the powers all 
came to wed themselves to it in loving obedience. There is a 
real universe now as before, because the universal nisus of the 
plan remains, and because the regulative order that compre- 
hends so great irregularity retains its integrity unbroken, its 
equilibrium undisturbed. 

If now we raise the question more distinctly, what is the great 
problem of existence as regards the order of powers, or the 
human race as being such, it is not difficult to answer, fol- 
lowing out the view thus far presented, that it is our perfection ; 
the perfection, that is, of our liberty, the schooling of our choice 
or consent as powers, so that we may be fully established in 
harmony with God's will and character ; unified with Him in 
His will, glorified with Him in the glory of His character, and 



A TRAINING INTO PERFECTION. 63 

so perfected with Him in His eternal beatitude. Persons or 
powers are creatures, we have seen, who act, not by causality, 
but by consent ; they must, therefore, be set in conditions that 
invite consent, and treated also in a manner that permits the 
caprices of liberty. It is also a remarkable distinction, we 
have noted, that they are creatures perfectible only after they 
are made, while mere natural quantities and objects are perfect 
as made. Just here, accordingly, the grand problem of their 
life and of the world begins. They are to be trained, formed, 
furnished, perfected ; and to this end are to be carried through 
just such scenes, experiences, changes, trials, variations, opera- 
tions, as will best serve their spiritual perfection and their final 
fruition of each other and of God. If there are necessary perils 
in such a trial of their liberty, then they are to be set upon the 
course of such perils. Nor will it make any difference if the 
perils are such as breed the greatest speculative difficulties. 
God does not frame His empire to suit and satisfy our specu- 
lations, but for our practical profit ; to bring us up into His 
own excellence, and establish us eternally in the participation 
of His character. On this subject there would seem to be very 
little room for doubt. The Scripture revelation proposes this view 
of life, our own observation confirms it, and, besides, there is 
really no other in which even our philosophy can comfortably rest. 
But this training of consent, this perfecting of liberty in the 
issues of character, it will help us at this early point to observe, 
is nothing different from a preparation for society, and a drill - 
practice in the principles of society ; that is, in truth, in purity, 
in justice, in patience, forgiveness, love, all the self-renouncing 
and beneficent virtues. Accordingly the course of training will 
itself be social ; a trial under, in, and by society. The powers 
will be thrown together in terms of duty as being terms of 
society, and in terms of society as being terms of duty. 
Morality and the law of religion respect society and the condi- 
tion of social wellbeing, which is the grand felicity of powers. 
Things have no society or capacity of social relations. In mere 
nature, considered as a scheme of cause and effect, there is noth- 
ing social, any more than there is in the members of a steam- 
engine. And if we really believe that we ourselves are only 
wheels in the play of an all-comprehending causation, it should 
be the end even of the feeling of society in us. Love, benefit, 
sympathy, injury, hatred, thanks, blame, character, worship, 



64 SOCIETY IS CARRIED ON 

faith, all that constitutes the reality of society, whether of men 
with God or of men with each other, belongs to the fact that we 
are consciously powers. Strip us of this, let all these fruits be 
regarded as mere dynamic results, under the head of natural 
philosophy, and they will change at once to be mere tricks or 
impostures of natural magic. Our discipline, therefore, is to be 
such as our supernatural and social quality requires, the dis- 
cipline of society. Since it is for society, it must be in and by 
society. We accordingly shall have a training as powers among 
other powers, such as will qualify us for a place of eternal unity 
and harmony with them under God, the central and First Power, 
so to be sent by him in a consolidated, everlasting kingdom of 
righteousness, and truth, and love, and peace. 

And thus it is that we find ourselves embodied in matter, to 
act as powers upon, for, with, and, if we will, against each 
other, in all the endless complications of look, word, act, art, 
force, and persuasion ; in the family and in the state, or two 
and two upon each other ; in marriage, fraternity, neighbour- 
hood, friends-hip, trade, association, protection, hospitality, 
instruction, sympathy ; or, if we will, in frauds, enmities, 
oppressions, cruelties, and mutual temptations, — great men 
moving the age they live in by their eloquence ; or shaping 
the ages to come by their institutions ; or corrupting the 
world's moral atmosphere by their bad thoughts, their fashions 
and vices ; or tearing and des» lating all things by irruptions of 
war, to win a throne of empire, or the honours of victors and 
heroes. By all these methods do we come into society, and 
begin to act, each one* upon the trains of cause and effect in 
nature ; thus upon each other, from our own point of liberty. 
And, accordingly, society is, in all its vast complications, an 
appointment — we cannot escape it. We can only say what 
kind of experience it shall be as regards the fruits of character 
in us. Meantime God is reigning over it, socially related Him- 
self to each member, governing and training that member 
through his own liberty. Life, thus ordered, is a magnificent 
scheme to bring out the value of law and teach the necessity 
of right as the only conservating principle of order and happi- 
ness ; teaching the more powerfully that it teaches, if so it 
must, by disorder and sorrow. And nature, it will be observed, 
Is the universal medium by or through which the training is 
accomplished. The powers act on each other, by acting on the 



THROUGH NATURE. 65 

lines of cause and effect in nature ; starting thus new trains 
of events and consequences, by which they affect each other in 
ways of injury or blessing. They speak and set the air in 
motion, as it otherwise would not move ; and so the obedient 
air, played on by their sovereignty, becomes the vehicle of 
words that communicate innumerable stings, insults, flatteries, 
seductions, threats ; or tones of comfort, love, and blessing. 
So of all the other elements, solid, fluid, or aerial, they are 
medial as between the powers. The whole play of commerce 
in society is through nature, and is, in fact, a playing on the 
causes and objects of nature by supernatural agents. All 
doings and misdoings are, in this view, a kind of discourse in 
the terms of nature, by which these supernatural agents, viz., 
men, answer to each other, or to God, in society. Their 
blasphemies, and prayers, and songs, and threats, their looks 
and gestures, their dress and manners, their injuries and alms, 
their blows and barricades and bullets and bombs, these and 
such like are society, the grand conversation by which our 
social discipline is carried on. And it is all a supernatural 
transaction. As a conversation in words is not reducible to 
mere natural causation, no more is that conversation in bullets 
and bombs that we call a battle. Nature could as well talk as 
compound her forces in cartridges and fire them with a levelled 
aim. Her activity in all these exchanges, or medial transac- 
tions, that are carried on so briskly, is only the activity of the 
powers through her, and is, in fact, supernatural. They start 
all these nimble couriers and set them flying back and forth, 
by the right they have to come down upon nature and act 
themselves into it. To a certain extent they are inserted into 
nature and conditioned by it. They live in nature and are of 
it, up to the point of their will, but there they emerge into 
qualified sovereignty. Without this inherence in nature they 
would have no media of action, no common terms of order, 
interest, or trial, and no such basis of reaction . as would make 
the consequences of their action ascertainable or intelligible ; 
without this sovereignty they would not be responsible. Hence 
God's way has been, in all ages, and doubtless in all worlds, 
to set his supernatural agents in the closest connexion with 
nature, there to have their action and there to perceive its 
effects on themselves and others. Even the miracles of Jesus 
are set as deep in nature as possible ; showing the wine of 



66 PROBABILITIES OF EVIL, 

Cana to be made out of water, and not out of nothing; the 
multitude of the loaves out of seven, not out of none ; that 
so the mind, being fastened to something already existent, may 
see the miracle as a process ; whereas, without a something in 
nature to begin with, there could be no process, and therefore 
nothing to observe. 

How far this range of society extends, whether nature is not, 
by some inherent necessity, a medium open to the commerce of 
all the powers of all worlds, involving, in that manner, a 
perilous exposure to demoniacal irruptions, till moral defences 
and safeguards are prepared against them, are questions not to 
be answered here ; but we shall recur to them shortly in another 
place. 

It has been already intimated, or shown as a possible thing, 
that the race, regarded as an order of powers, may break loose 
from God's control and fall into sin. Will they so break loose ? 
Regarding them simply as made and set forth on the course of 
training necessary to their establishment in holy virtue, will 
they retain their innocence ? Have we any reason to think, 
and, if so, what reason to think, that they will drop their 
allegiance and try the experiment of evil ? 

It is very certain that God desires no such result. When it 
takes place, it will be against His will and against every attri- 
bute of His infinitely beneficent and pure character. It will 
only be true that He has created moral and accountable beings 
with this peril incident, rather than to create only nature and 
natural things ; having it in view, us the glorious last end of 
His plan, finally to clear us of sin by passing us, since we will 
descend to it, completely through it. He will have given us, 
or, at least, the original new-created progenitors, a constituently 
perfect mould ; so that, taken simply as forms of being, apart 
from any character begun by action, they are in that exact 
harmony and perfection that, without or before deliberation, 
spontaneously runs to good ; organically ready, with all 
heavenly affinities in play, to break out in a perfect song. 
So far they are innocent and holy by creation, or by the simple 
fact of their constituent perfection in the image of their Maker ; 
only there is no sufficient strength or security in their holiness, 
because there is no deliberative element in it. Deliberation, 
when it comes, as come it must, will be the inevitable fall of it ; 



AGAINST THE WILL OF GOD. 67 

and then, when the side of counsel in them is sufficiently 
instructed by that fall and the bitter sorrow it yields, and the 
holy freedom is restored, it may be or become an eternally- 
enduring principle. Spontaneity in good, without. counsel, is 
weak ; counsel and deliberative choice, without spontaneity, are 
only a character begun ; issued in spontaniety, they are the 
solid reality of everlasting good. Still it will not, even then, be 
true that God has contrived their sin, as a means of the 
ulterior good, though it may be true that they, by their know- 
ledge of it as being only evil, will be intelligently fixed, for 
ever afterward, in their abhorrence of it. Nor, if we speak of 
sin as permitted in this view by God, will it be any otherwise 
permitted, than as not being prevented, either by the non- 
creation, or by the uncreating of the race. 

It may appear to some that such a view of God's relations 
to sin excludes the fact or faith of an eternal plan, showing 
God to be, in fact, the victim of sin ; having neither power to 
withstand it, nor any system of purposes able to include and 
manage it. On this subject of foreordination or predetermined 
plan, there is a great deal of very crude and confused speculation. 
If there be any truth which every Christian ought to assume, as 
evident beyond all question, it is that God has some eternal 
plan that includes everything, and puts everything in its place. 
That He 'foreordains whatsoever comes to pass," is only 
another version of the same truth. Nor is there any the least 
difficulty in distinguishing the entire consistency of this with all 
that we have said concerning God's relations to the existence of 
evil — no difficulty, in fact, which does not occur in phrasing the 
conduct and doings even of men. 

Suppose, for example, that some person, actuated by a desire 
to benefit or bless society, takes it in hand to establish and 
endow a school of public charity. In such a case, he will go 
into a careful consideration of all the possible plans of organi- 
zation, with a view to select the best. In order to make the 
case entirely parallel, suppose him to have a complete intuition 
of these plans or possibilities — A, B, and C, etc., on to the 
end of the alphabet ; so that, giving each plan or possibility, 
with all its features and appointments, he can see precisely 
what will follow — all the good, all the mischief, that will be 
incurred by every child that will ever attend the school. For 
in each of these plans or possibles there are mischiefs incident ; 



08 GOD STILL GOVERNS 

and there will be children attendant, who, by reason of no fault 
of the school, but only by their perverse abuse of it, will there 
be ruined. The benefactor and founder, having thus discovered 
that a certain plan, D, combines the greatest amount of good 
results and the smallest of bad ones, the question rises, whether 
he shall adopt that plan ? By the supposition he must, for it 
is the best possible. And yet, by adopting that plan, he per- 
ceives that he will make certain also every particular one of the 
mischiefs that will be suffered by the abuse of it, and so the 
ruin of every child that will be ruined under it. As long as 
the plan is only a possible, a thing of contemplation, no mis- 
chiefs are suffered, no child is ruined ; but the moment he 
decides to make the plan actual, or set the school on foot, he 
decides, makes certain, or, in that sense, foreordinates, all the 
particular bad conduct and all the particular undoing there to 
be wrought, as intuitively seen by him beforehand. Nothing 
of this would come to pass if the school, D, were not founded ; 
and, in simply deciding on the plan, with a perfect perception 
of what will take place under it, he decides the bad results as 
well as the good, though in senses entirely different. The bad 
are not from him, nor from anything he has introduced, or 
appointed ; but wholly from the abuses of his beneficence 
practised by others whom he undertook to bless. The good 
is all from him, being that for which he established the 
school. Both are knowingly made certain or foreordained by 
his act. 

In this illustration it is not difficult to distinguish the true 
relation of God to the existence of evil. In selecting the best 
possible plan among the millions of possibles open to His con- 
templation, and deciding to set on foot or actualize that parti- 
cular universe, He also made certain all the evils or mischiefs 
seen to be connected with it. But they are not from Him, 
because they are, in this indirect manner, made certain, or fore- 
ordinated by Him. It is hardly right to say that they are per- 
mitted by Him. They come in only as necessary evils that 
environ the best plan possible. Such are the relations of (rod 
to the existence of evil. If it comes, it is not from Him, any 
more than the ruin of certain children in the school, just sup- 
posed, are from the benevolent founder. And yet He is not 
disappointed, or frustrated. Still He governs with a plan, a 
perfect and eternal plan, which comprehends, in its exact date 



BY AN ETERNAL PLAN. 69 

and place, everything which every wrong- doing and revolting 
spirit will do, even to the end of the world. 

Thus far we have spoken of God's relations to the existence 
of evil, or its possible prevention. We pass over now to the 
side of his subjects ; and there we shall find reason, as regards 
their self- retention, to believe that the certainty of their sin is 
originally involved in their spiritual training as powers. Made 
organically perfect, set as full in God's harmony as they can 
be, in the mould of their constitution,, surrounded by as many 
things as possible to allure them to ways of obedience and keep 
them from the seductions of sin, we shall discover still that, 
given the fact of their begun existence, and their trial as per- 
sons or powers, they are in a condition privative that involves 
their certain lapse into evil. 

If the language I employ in speaking of this matter is pecu- 
liar, it is because I am speaking with caution, and carefully en- 
deavouring to find terms that will convey the right, separated 
from any false, impression. I speak of a "condition priva- 
tive," it will be observed; not of any positive ground, or cause, 
or necessity ; for, if there were any natural necessity for sin, it 
would not be sin. If it were caused, as all simply natural 
events are caused, or, what is the same, if it were a natural 
effect, it would not be sin. We might as well blame the run- 
ning of the rivers, in such a case, as the wrong- doing of men ; 
for what we may call their wrong-doing is, after all, nothing 
but the run of causes hid in their person, as gravity is hid in 
the running waters. If we could show a positive ground for 
sin ; that man, for example, is a being whose nature it is to 
choose the strongest motive, as of a scale-beam to be turned 
by the heaviest weight, and that the strongest motive, arranged 
to operate on men, is the motive to do evil, that in fact would 
be the denial of sin, or even of its possibility ; indeed it is so 
urged by the disciples of naturalism on every side. So again, 
if we could, in a way of positive philosophy, account for the 
existence of evil — exactly what multitudes even of Christian 
believers set themselves to do, not observing that, if they could 
execute their endeavour, they could also make as good answer 
for evil on the judgment day of the world — if, I say, we could 
properly and positively account for evil in this manner, it would 
not be evil any longer. When we speak of accounting for any- 



70 EVIL FROM A CONDITION PRIVATIVE. 

thing, we suppose a discovery of first principles to which it may 
be referred ; but sin can be referred to no first principles ; it is 
simply the act of a power that spurns all inductives back of the 
doer's will, and asserts itself, apart from all first principles, or 
even against them. Therefore, to avoid all these false im- 
plications, and present the simple truth of fact, I speak of a 
" condition privative ; " by which I mean a moral state that is 
only inchoate or incomplete, lacking something not yet reached, 
which is necessary to the probable rejection of evil. Thus an 
infant child runs directly toward, and will, in fact, run into the 
fire, not because of any necessity upon him, but simply because 
he is in a condition privative as regards the experience needed 
to prevent him. I said, also, "involves the certain lapse into 
evil," not "produces," "infers," "makes necessary." There is 
no connexion of science or law between the subject and predi- 
cate, such that, one being given, the other holds by natural 
consequence; and yet this condition privative "involves," ac- 
cording to our way of apprehending it, a certain conviction or 
expectation of the event stated. Thus we often attain to 
expectations concerning the conduct of men, as fixed as those 
which we hold concerning natural events where the connexion 
of cause and consequence is absolute. We become acquainted, 
as we say, with a certain person ; we learn how he works in 
his freedom, or how, as a power acting from himself, he is wont 
to carry himself in given conditions ; and, finally, we attain to 
a sense of him so intimate that, given almost any particular 
occasion or transaction touching his interest, we have an ex- 
pectation or confidence regarding what he will do about as 
fixed as we have in the connexions of natural events. The 
particular thing done to him "involves," in our apprehension, 
as the certain fact, that he will do a particular thing consequent. 
And yet we have no conception that he is determined in such 
matters by any causation or law of necessary connexion, the 
certainty we feel is the certainty, not of a thing, but of a power 
in the sovereign determination of his liberty. In this and no 
other sense do we speak of a condition privative that involves 
a certain lapse into evil. 

Having distinguished, in this careful manner, the true import 
of the terms employed, it now remains to look for that condi- 
tion privative on which so much depends. And we shall dis- 
cover it in three particulars. 



OUR NECESSARY DEFECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 71 

1. In the necessary defect of knowledge and consequent weak- 
ness of a free person or power, considered as having just begun 
to be. We must not imagine, because he is a power able in 
his action to set himself above all natural causes, and act origi- 
natively as from himself, that he is therefore strong. On the 
contrary, even though he begins in the full maturity of his 
person, having a constitution set in perfect harmony with the 
divine order and truth, he is the weakest, most unperfect of 
beings. The stones of the world are strong in their destiny, 
because it stands in God under laws of causation fixed by Him. 
But free agents are weak because they are free, left to act ori- 
ginatively, held fast by no superior determination, bound to no 
sure destiny, save as they are trained into character in and 
through their experience. 

Our argument forbids that we should assume the truth of 
the human genesis reported in Scripture history ; for that is 
commonly denied by naturalism. I may not even assume that 
we are descended of a common stock. But this, at least, is 
certain, that we each began to be, and therefore we may the 
more properly take the case of Adam for an example ; because 
not being corrupted by any causes back of him, as we most 
certainly are, and making a beginning in the full maturity of 
his powers, he may be supposed to have had some advantages 
for standing fast in the right, which we have not. 

As we look upon him, raising the question whether he has 
moral strength to stand, we observe, first of all, that being in 
a perfect form of harmony, uncorrupted, clean, in one word, a 
complete integer, he must of course be spontaneous to good, 
and can never fall from it until his spontaneity is interrupted 
by some reflective exercise of contrivance or deliberative judg- 
ment. But this will come to pass without fail in a very short 
time, because he is not only spontaneous to good, but is also a 
reflective and deliberative being. And then what shall become 
of his integrity ? 

Entering still further into his case, as we raise this question, 
we perceive that he holds a place or point in his action between 
two distinct ranges of thought and motivity ; between neces- 
sary ideas on one hand, and knowledges or judgments drawn 
from experience on the other. In the first place, being a man, 
he has necessarily developed in his consciousness the law of 
right. He thinks the right, and, in thinking it, feels himself 



72 OUR NECESSARY DEFECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 

eternally bound by it. We may call it an idea in him, or a 
law or a category of his being. He would not be a man with- 
out it ; for it is only in connexion with this and other neces- 
sary ideas that he ranges above the animals. Animals have 
no necessary ideas ; these, especially such as are moral, are the 
necessary and peculiar furniture of man. What could a man 
do in the matter of justice, inquiring after it, determining what 
it is, if the idea of justice were not first developed as a standard 
thought or idea in his mind ? Who would set himself on in- 
quiries after true things and judgments, if the idea of truth were 
not in him as a regulative thought or category of his nature ? 
Thus it is, by our idea of right, that we are set to the con- 
ceiving or thought of duty, as well as placed under obligations 
itself; and -we could not so much as raise the question of virtue 
or morality, if we were not first configured to its law, and set 
in action as being consciously under it. Herein, too, we are 
specially resembled to God ; for, by this same idea of right, 
necessary, immutable, eternal, it is that He is placed in obliga- 
tion, and it is by His ready and perfect homage to this that 
His glorious character is built. And this law is absolute or 
unconditional to Him as to us, to us as to Him. No matter 
what may befall or not befall us on the empirical side of 
our life. No impediment, no threat, or fear, or force, can ex- 
cuse us ; least of all can any mere condition privative, such as 
ignorance, inexperience, or the want of opposing motive. Simply 
to have thought the right, is to be under obligation to it, with- 
out any motive or hope in the world of experience, and despite 
of all opposing motives there. Even if the worlds fall on us, 
we must do the right. 

Pass over now from the absolute or ideal side of our existence, 
to the contingent or empirical. Here we are dealing with effects, 
consequences, facts, trying our strength in attempts, computing, 
comparing, judging, learning how to handle things, and how 
they will handle us. And by this kind of experience we get 
all the furniture of our mind and character, save what we have 
as it were concreated in us in those necessary ideas of which 
we have spoken, and which are pre-supposed in all experience. 
What now, reverting to the case of Adam as a just-begun exist- 
ence, is the amount of his experimental, empirical, or historic 
knowledge ? The knowledges we here inquire after, it will be 
observed, are such as are gotten historically, one by one, and 



OUR NECESSARY PERIL. 73 

one after another, under conditions of time ; by seeing, doing, 
suffering, comparing, distinguishing, remembering, and other 
like operations. A man's knowledge here is represented, of 
course, by what he has been through, and felt, and thought. 
What then can he know, at the first moment of his being, when, 
by the supposition, he has never had a thought or an experience ; 
or, if we take him at a point an hour or a day later, none but 
that of a single hour or day ? Being a perfectly disposed 
creature, the first man sets off, we will say, in a spontaneous 
obedience to the right, which is the absolute law of his nature, 
and is in him originally, by the necessary conditions of his nature. 
But there comes up shortly a question regarding some act, con- 
fessedly not right, or some act which, being forbidden, violates 
his sense of right. No matter what it is, he can be as properly, 
and will be as effectually tested, by adhering to the sense of 
obligation, in withholding from an apple forbidden, as in any- 
thing else. Here then he stands upon the verge of experimental 
wrong, debating the choice. What it is in its idea, or obligatory 
principle, he knows ; but what it is in the experience of its 
fruits or consequences, he knows not. The discord, bitterness, 
remorse, and inward hell of wrong are hidden, as yet, from his 
view. If minatory words have been used, pronouncing death 
upon him in case of disobedience, some degree of apprehension 
may have been awakened in him anticipatively, under the 
natural efficacy of manner and expression, which, even prior to 
any culture of experience, have a certain degree of power. But 
how little will this amount to in a way of guard or security for 
his virtue ; for he is a knowing creature still ; wanting there- 
fore to know, and, if it were not for this noble instinct of 
knowledge, would not be a man. What then is this wrong he is 
debating, what does it signify ? He does not ask whether it 
will bring him evil or good ; for what these are, experimentally, 
he does not know. Enough that here is some great secret of 
knowledge to be opened ; how can he abstain, how refuse to 
break through the mask of this unknown something, and know ? 
He is tempted thus, we perceive, not by something positive 
placed in his way, but by a mere condition privative, a perplex- 
ing defect of knowledge incident to the fact of his merely begun 
existence. 

Doubtless it will be urged that no such wrong would ever 
be debated, if some positive desire of the nature were not first 



74 WHICH PERIL DOES NOT 

excited, some constitutional susceptibility or want drawn out 
in longing for its object. Even so, precisely that we have 
allowed ; for what is the desire of knowledge itself but a posi- 
tive and most powerful instinct of the soul ? Only the more 
clear is it that, if the desired knowledge were already in pos- 
session, the temptation itself would be over. So if some bodily 
appetite were excited ; how trivial and contemptible were this, 
or any proposed pleasure, if only the tremendous evil and woe 
of the wrong were already known, as it will be after years of 
struggle and suffering in it. The grand peril, therefore, is still 
seen to be of a privative and not of a positive nature. There 
must be positive impulses to be governed, or else there could 
not be a man ; and the peril is that there is yet no experimental 
knowledge on hand, and can be none, sufficient to protect and 
guard the process. 

And yet the man is guilty if he makes the fatal choice. Even 
if the strongest motive were that way, he is yet a being able to 
choose against the strongest, and he consciously knows that he 
ought. In any view, he is not obliged to choose the wrong, 
more than a child is obliged to thrust his hand into the blaze of 
a lamp, the experience of which is unknown. The cases are, in 
fact, strongly analogous, save that the wrong-doer knows before- 
hand, as the child certainly does not, that the act is wrong or 
criminal ; a consideration by which he consciously ought to be 
restrained, be the consequences what they may. And yet, who 
can expect that he will for ever be restrained, never breaking 
over this mysterious line to make the bad experiment, or try 
what is in this unknown something eternally before his eyes ? 
If we rightly remember, the false prophet somewhere represents 
the difficulty of a certain course of virtue, by that of crossing the 
fiery gulf of hell upon a hair. Possibly our first man may cross 
upon this hair and keep his balance till he is completely over, 
but who will expect him to do it ? He may look upon the tree 
of knowledge of good and evil (rightly is it named), and pass it 
by. He can do it ; there is a real possibility as there is a real 
obligation ; but Adam, we are told, did not, neither is there any 
the least probability that any other of mankind, with all his 
advantages, ever would. 

If it should be apprehended by any that a condition privative, 
connected as it plainly is with such perils, quite takes away the 
guilt of sin, that, I answer, is by the supposition impossible. It 



EXCUSE OUR SIN 75 

really takes away nothing. The right and only true statement 
is, that the guilt of sin is not as greatly enhanced as it would 
be, if all the knowledge needful to the strength of virtue were 
supplied. We differ in this matter from those naturalistic 
philosophers, who reduce all human wrong to weakness, and 
obliterate in that manner all the distinctions of good and evil. 
We really excuse nothing ; we only do not condemn as severely 
as if the eternal and absolute obligation of right, revealed in 
every human bosom, were more thoroughly fortified by prudential 
and empiric knowledge. 

It may also be objected, as contrary to all experience, as well 
as to the nature of sin itself, that sin should impart strength or 
increase the capacity of virtue. What in fact does it bring, but 
bondage, disability, and death ? Even so — this is the knowledge 
of sin, and no one is the more capable of holiness on account of 
it. It is the very point, indeed, of this knowledge, that it 
knows disability, helplessness, despair. And exactly this it is 
that prepares the possibility of a new creation. Impotence dis- 
covered is the capacity of redemption. And then, when a soul 
has been truly regenerated and set in union with God, its bad 
experience will be the condition of its everlasting stability and 
strength. 

It will naturally enough be objected, again, by some who hold 
the principle of disinterested and absolute virtue here assumed, 
that no mere defect of empirical knowledge — the knowledge of 
prudence or self-interest — creates a condition privative as regards 
the security of virtue • — what need of experience to enforce 
obligations that are perfect, apart from all consequences ? If 
one is loving God, as he ought, simply for his own excellence or 
beauty, and living by the inspiration of that excellence, 
what matter is it whether he knows the practical bitterness, 
the woe, the hell of sin, and understands the penal sanctions 
of reward and penalty set against it, or not ? Is he going 
to fall out of his love and his inspired liberty, because he is 
not sufficiently shut into it by fears and apprehended miseries ? 
There is an appearance of force in the objection, and yet it is 
only an appearance. For, in the first place, it is not assumed that 
Adam, or any other man, put to the trial of a right life, is weak 
in his spontaneous obedience, because he is not sufficiently held 
to it by the prudential motives of fear and known destruction ; 
but because his curiosity, as a knowing creature, is provoked, 



76 INHERENT NEED, ALSO, 

or will be, by not so much as knowing what the motives are, 
in a word, by the profound mystery that overhangs the question 
of wrong itself. Indeed he does not even so much as know 
what it will do, whether it will raise to some unknown pitch 
of greatness in power and intelligence or not. In the next 
place, it is not assumed that the prudential motives of reward 
and penalty will ever recover any fallen spirit from his defections 
and bring him into the inspired, free state of love. The office 
of such means and motives is wholly negative ; viz., to arrest the 
bad soul in its evil and bring it to a stand of self-renunciation, 
where the higher motives of the divine excellence and love may 
kindle it. In the third place, it is not assumed that, when souls 
are recovered from evil, and finally established in holy liberty, 
which is the problem of their trial, they are made safe for the 
coming eternity by knowing how dreadfully they will be scorched 
by evil in case they relapse ; but their safety is that, having been 
dreadfully scorched already by it, they have thoroughly proved 
what is in it, and extirpated all the fascinations of its mystery. 

2. It is another condition privative, as regards the moral per- 
fection of powers, that they require an empirical training, or 
course of government, to get them established in the absolute 
law of duty; and that this empirical training must probably have 
a certain adverse effect for a time, before it can mature its better 
results. The eternal idea of justice makes no one just; that of 
truth makes no one true ; that of beauty makes no soul beauti- 
ful. So the eternal law of right makes no one righteous. All 
these standard ideas require a process or drill, in the field of 
experience, in order to become matured into characters, or to 
fashion character in the moulds they supply. And this process, 
or drill-practice, will require two economies or courses ; the first 
of which will be always a failure, taken in itself, but will fur- 
nish, nevertheless, a necessary ground for the second, by which 
its effects will be converted into benefits ; and then the result 
— a holy character — will be one of course that presupposes both. 

The first named course or economy is that of law ; which is 
called, even in Scripture, the letter that killeth. The law ab- 
solute, of which we just now spoke, is a merely necessary idea ; 
commanding us, from eternity, as it did the great Creator him- 
self — do right — making no specifications and applying no mo- 
tives, save what are contained in its own absolute excellence 



OF THE LETTER THAT KILLETH, 77 

and authority. But the receiving it in that manner, which is 
the only manner in which it can be truly received, supposes a 
mind and temper already configured to it, so as to be in. it in 
mere love and the spontaneous homage that enthrones it, be- 
cause of its excellence, and God because He represents its ex- 
cellence. Here, therefore, is the problem how to produce this 
practical configuration. And it is executed thus : — God, as a 
power and a force extraneous, undertakes for it, first of all, to 
enforce it empirically, by motives extraneous ; those of reward 
and fear, profit and loss. He takes the law absolute down into 
the world of prudence, re-enacting it there and preparing to 
train us into it, by a drill-practice under sanctions. In one 
view, the sanctions added are inappropriate ; for they are 
opposite to all spontaneity, being appeals to interest, and so 
far calls that draw the soul away from the more inspiring con- 
siderations of inherent excellence. The subject is lifted by no 
inspiration. He is down under the law, at the best, trying to 
come up to it by willing, punctuatim et seriatim, what parti- 
cular things are required in the specifications made by it. If 
we could suppose the law thus enforced to be perfectly observed 
under this pressure of prudential sanctions, it would only make 
a dry, punctilious, and painfully apprehensive kind of virtue, 
without liberty or dignity. The more probable result is a 
habitual and wearisome selfishness ; for, as long as the mind is 
occupied by these empirical and extraneous sanctions, it is held 
to the consideration of self-interest only ; and the motives it is 
all the while canvassing, are such as the worst mind can feel, 
as well as that which is truly upright. And yet there is a 
benefit preparing in this first or legal economy, which is indis- 
pensable; viz., this, that it gives adhesiveness to the law, which 
otherwise, as being merely ideal, we might lightly dismiss ; 
that the friction it creates, like some mordant in the dyeing pro- 
cess, sets in the law and fastens it practically, or as an experi- 
mental reality ; that the woes of penalty wage a battle for it, in 
which the soul is continually worsted and so broken in ; that 
it developes, in short, a whole body of moral judgments and 
convictions, that wind the soul about as cords of detention, 
till finally the law to be enforced becomes an experimental verity 
fully established. Just here the soul begins to feel a dreadful 
coil of thraldom round it. To get away from the law is im- 
possible ; for it is hedged about with fire. To keep it is im- 



78 AS A STAGE OF TRANSITION 

possible ; for the struggle is only a heaving under self-interested 
motive, to get clear of a state whose bane is selfishness. What 
it means, the subject cannot find. He is in a condition of 
bitter thraldom ; his sin appears to be sin even more than ever ; 
and the whole discipline he is under seems only to minister the 
knowledge of sin ; he groans, as it were, under a body of sin and 
death that he cannot heave. 

And so he is made ready for the second economy, that of 
liberating grace and redemption. For now, in Christ, the law 
returns, a person, clothed in all personal beauty, and offers it- 
self to the choice, even as a friend and deliverer ; so that being- 
taken with love to Christ, and drawing near at His call in holy 
trust, the bondman is surprised to find that he is loving the law 
as the perfect law of liberty ; which was the point to be gained 
or carried. And so, what began, as a necessary idea, is wrought 
into a character and become eternal fact. The whole operation, 
it will be observed, supposes a condition privative in the subject, 
such that he suffers, at first, a kind of repulsion by the law, and 
is only won to it by embracing the goodness of it in a personal 
friend and deliverer. 

And something like this double administration of law and 
liberty we distinguish, in many of the matters even of our 
worldly life. No exactness of drill makes an army efficient or 
invincible, till it is fired by some free impulse from the leader, 
or the cause ; and yet the wearisome and tedious drill is a pre- 
vious condition, without which this latter were impossible. No 
great work of genius was ever written in the way of work, or 
before the wings were lifted by some gale of inspiration ; which 
gale, again, would never have begun to blow, had not the win- 
dows of thought and the chambers of light and beauty within 
been opened by years of patient toil and study. The artist plods 
on wearily, drudging in the details of his art, till finally the in- 
spiration takes him, and, from that point onward, his hand is 
moved by his subject, with no conscious drudgery or labour. 
In the family, we meet a much closer and equally instructive 
analogy. The young child is overtaken first by the discipline of 
the house, in a form of law ; commanded, forbidden, sent, inter- 
dicted, all in a way of authority, and to that authority is added 
something which compels respect. If he is a ductile and gentle 
child, he will be generally obedient ; but the examples are few 
in which the child will not sometimes be openly restive, or even 



TO SPIRITUAL LIBERTY. 79 

stiffen himself in wilful disobedience. In any case, it will be 
law, not coinciding always with the child's wishes, or his opinions 
of pleasure and advantage ; and there will be a sense of con- 
straint, more or less irksome, as if the authority felt were repug- 
nant and contrary to the desired happiness. By and by, how- 
ever, authority changes its aspect and becomes lovely. The 
habit of obedience, the experience had of parental fidelity and 
tenderness, and the discovery made of absurdity and hidden 
mischief in the things interdicted, as it seemed arbitrarily, gra- 
dually abolishes the sense of law, and substitutes a control not 
felt before — the control of personal love and respect. So that, 
finally, the man of thirty will carefully and reverently anticipate 
the minutest wishes of a parent, and, if that can be called obe- 
dience, will obey him ; when, as a child of three, he could barely 
endure his authority, and submitted to it only because it was 
duty enforced. 

Such is the analogy of common life. Law and liberty are 
the two grand terms under which it is passed — law first and 
liberty afterward. And with all this corresponds what is said, 
in the New Testament, of law as related to gospel. It is said, 
in one view, of the laborious ritual of Moses ; yet, by this his- 
toric reference, it is designed to lead the mind back into a more 
general and deeper truth. It is called " the letter that killeth," 
as related to "the spirit that giveth life." It is said to have 
its value in the development of knowledge ; for by the law is 
"the knowledge of sin" — "that sin by the commandment 
might become exceeding sinful." It is bondage introducing 
and preparing liberty. "The law gendereth to bondage," but 
the gospel, " Jerusalem that is above, is free." " If there had 
been a law, that could have given life, verily righteousness 
should have been by the law ; " but that was impossible. " It 
is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," and then, having 
embraced him, he becomes a new inspiration in our love, after 
which we no more need " to be under a schoolmaster." " The 
law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope 
did." 

There is reason to suspect that many will reject what I am 
here advancing. They will do it, of course, for the simple 
reason that they know no other kind of virtue but that which 
is legal, having, therefore, in their consciousness, nothing which 
answers to the liberty of the Spirit. To them, what I have 



80 A THIRD LIABILITY 

here said will have an appearance of cant. Exactly contrary 
to which, I affirm it as the only competent philosophy, perceiv- 
ing, I think, as clearly as I perceive anything, that the con- 
junction discovered in Christianity of these two ministrations is 
not any casual or accidental matter, as if men had somehow 
fallen under law, and God was constrained afterward to do 
something for them ; on the contrary, that the whole manage- 
ment is from before the foundation of the world, having respect 
to a grand antecedent necessity, involved in the perfecting of 
virtue. God never proposed to perfect a character in men by 
mere legal obedience. But He instituted law originally, no 
doubt, as a first stage, preparatory to a second ; both of which 
were to be kept on foot together, and both of which are blended, 
in one way or another, probably, in the training of all holy 
minds in all worlds. 

3. There appears to be yet another condition privative, as 
regards our security against sin, in the social relation of powers 
and their trial in and through that relation; viz., that they are 
at first exposed to invasions of malign influence from each other, 
which can nowise be effectually prevented, save as they are 
finally fortified by the defences of character. In this view, if I 
am right, a great part of the problem of existence must consist 
in what may be called the fencing of powers ; that is, by assort- 
ing and separating the good from the bad, and rendering one 
class inaccessible to the arts and annoyances of the other. 

The individual, as we have seen, is to be perfected for so- 
ciety ; and for that reason he must needs have his trial in and 
through society. A still wider truth appears to be that the 
perfect society thus preparing is to be one and universal, com- 
prehending the righteous populations of all worlds and ages, 
for the terms of duty and religion are in their nature universal ; 
and for this reason it appears also to be necessary that the trial 
and training should be in some open field of activity common to 
all the powers. Accordingly, as we are made with social, and, 
if I may use the term, commercial natures — having inlets of 
sympathy and impression, by which we may feel one another ; 
capacities to receive and give, to wrong, to offend, to comfort, 
to strengthen, to seduce, and betray one another — so there is 
an antecedent probability that the terms of social exposure will 
involve some possibility of access, on the part of beings un- 



TO INVASION, ?L 

seen, that are not of our race. Indeed, if it should happen 
that spirits are impossible to be sorted and fenced apart by 
walls of matter, or gulfs of distance, or abysses of emptiness, 
something like this would seem to be necessarily involved, 
till they are sorted, and the gates of commerce are shut fast 
by the repulsions of contrary affinities. And, accordingly, till 
this takes place, there must be exposures to good and malign 
influence more numerous than we can definitely mark or distin- 
guish. 

With this corresponds, it will be observed, all that is said in 
the Scriptures of the activity of ministering angels engaged to 
confirm and comfort us, the insidious arts of a bad spirit to 
accomplish our fall, and the manifold enticements and malignant 
possessions of evil demons generally. But I advert to these 
representations, it will be observed, not in a way of assuring 
their authenticity, for that is forbidden by the nature of my 
argument. I only cite them as offering conceptions to our mind 
or imagination that may be necessary to a full comprehension of 
what is included in the subject. 

Many will object, most sturdily and peremptorily, I am well 
aware, to the possibility of enticements and arts, practised by 
unseen agents, to draw us off from our fidelity to God, alleging 
that such an exposure impeaches the fatherhood of God, and 
virtually destroys our responsibility. But what if it should 
happen to be involved as the necessary condition of any pro- 
perly social existence ? And it might as well be urged that 
every temptation is an impeachment of God which comes from 
sources unseen, being an approach that takes us off our guard, 
and upsets the balance, possibly, of our judgments, just when 
we are most implicitly confiding in them. Allowing such an 
objection, therefore, responsibility would be impossible ; for who 
of us was ever able to see distinctly, by what afvenues all of his 
temptations or enticements came ? Besides, saying nothing of 
bad spirits, by how many methods — by air, look, sympathy — 
do we produce immediate impressions in each other, whose 
sources are never noted or suspected ; conveying sentiments, 
drawing to this or that, fascinating, magnetizing, playing upon 
one another, by methods as subtle and secret, as if the mischief 
came from powers of darkness. And yet we never imagine 
that such enticements encroach at all on the grounds of our just 
responsibility, and all for the manifest reason that it never mat- 



82 AT A GREAT DISADVANTAGE, 

ters whence dux enticements come, or by what arts the colour 
of our judgments is varied and their equilibrium disturbed; 
still we know, in all cases, that the wrong is wrong, and know- 
ing that is enough to complete our responsibility. 

I am well aware of the modern tendency to resolve what is 
said on this subject in the Scripture into figures of speech, 
excluding all idea of a literal intermeddling of bad spirits. But 
that there are bad spirits, there is no more reason to doubt, 
than that there are bad men (who are in fact bad spirits), and 
as little that the bad spirits are spirits of mischief, and will act 
in character, according to their opportunity. As regards the 
possession of foul spirits, it has been maintained by many of 
the sturdiest supporters of revelation, and by reference to the 
words employed in one or two _cases by the evangelists them- 
selves, that they were only diseases regarded in that light. 
Others have assumed the necessary absurdity of these possessions 
without argument ; and still others have made them a subject of 
much scoffing and profane ridicule. For the last half century, 
and contemporaneously with our modern advances in science, 
there has been a general gravitation of opinion, regarding this 
and many other points, toward the doctrine oi the Sadducees. 
Which makes it only the more remarkable, that now, at last, a 
considerable sect of our modern Sadducees themselves, who 
systematically reject the faith of anything supernatural, are 
contributing what aid they can to restore the precise faith of 
the New Testament, respecting foul spirits. They do not call 
their spiritual visitors devils, or their demonized mediums 
possessed persons. But the low manners of their spirits, and 
the lying oracles which it is agreed that some of them give, 
and the power they display of acting on the lines of cause and 
effect in nature, when thumping under tables, jolting stoves, 
and floating men and women through the upper spaces of 
rooms, proves them to be, if they are anything, supernatural 
beings ; leaving no appreciable distinction between them and 
the demoniacal irruptions of Scripture. For though there be 
some talk of electricity and science, and a show of reducing 
the new discovered commerce to laws of calculable recurrence, 
it is much more likely to be established by their experiments 
as a universal fact, that whatever being, of whatever world, 
opens himself to their visitation, or invites the presence of 
powers indiscriminately as respects their character, whether it 



FROM THE ASSAULTS OF BAD SPIRITS. 83 

be under some thin show of scientific practice or not, will 
assuredly have the commerce invited ! Far enough is it from 
being either impossible or incredible ; and exactly this is what 
our new school of charlatanism suggests, that immense multi- 
tudes of powers interfused, in their self-active liberty, through 
all the abysses and worlds of nature, have it as the battle-field 
of their good or malign activity, doing in it and upon it, as 
the Scriptures testify, acts supernatural that extend, to us. 
This being true, what shall be expected, but that where there 
is anything congenial in temper or character to set open the 
soul, and nothing of antipathy to repel ; or where any one, 
through a licentious curiosity, a foolish conceit of science, or a 
bad faith in powers of necromancy, calls on spirits to come, no 
matter from what world — in such a case what shall follow, 
but that troops of malign powers rush in upon their victim, to 
practise their arts in him at will. I know nothing at all 
personally of these new mysteries ; but if a man, as Townsend, 
and many others testify, can magnetize his patient, even at the 
distance of miles, it should not seem incredible that foul spirits 
can magnetize also. This indeed was soon discovered in the 
power of spirits to come into mediums, and make them write 
and speak their oracles. It is also a curious coincidence that 
no one, as we are told, can be magnetized, or become a medium, 
or even be duly enlightened by a medium, who is uncongenial 
in his affinities, or maintains any quality of antipathy in his 
will, or temper, or character ; for then the commerce sought 
is impossible. Beside it is remarkable that the persons who 
dabble most freely in this kind of commerce, are seen, as a 
general fact, to run down in their virtue, lose their sense of 
principles, and become addled, by their familiarity with the 
powers of mischief. 

In these references to bad spirits, and the matter of demon- 
ology in general, I do not assume to have established any very 
decisive conclusion ; for the Scripture representations cannot 
be assumed as true, and the new demons of science I know 
nothing about, except by report. This only is made clear, that 
the suggestion of a condition privative in men, as regards their 
defence against the irruption of other powers, is one that can- 
not be disproved by any facts within the compass of our know- 
ledge. And since other powers doubtless exist, both good and 
bad, who are being sorted and fenced apart by the contrary 



84 CONCLUSION REACHED. 

affinities of character, nothing can be more consonant to reason 
than that there must be exposures to unseen mischief in our 
trial, till these eternal fences are raised. 

We find then — this is the result of our search — that sin can 
nowise be accounted for ; there are no positive grounds, or 
principles back of it, whence it may have come. We only 
discover conditions privative, that are involved, as necessary 
incidents in the begun existence and trial of powers. These 
conditions privative are in the nature of perils, and while they 
excuse nothing, — for the law of duty is always plain, — they are 
yet drawn so close to the soul and open their gulfs, on either 
hand so deep, that our expectation of the fall is really as 
pressing as if it were determined by some law that annihilates 
liberty. Liberty we know is not annihilated. And yet we 
say, looking on the state of man made perilous, in this manner, 
by liberty, that we cannot expect him to stand. 

Some persons who are accustomed to receive the Scriptures 
with great reverence, and whose feeling, therefore, is the more 
entitled to respect, may be disturbed by the apprehension, that 
we violate what they take for an evidently scriptural truth 
concerning the good angels. These are finite beings, and had 
a begun existence, and yet we are taught, as it will be urged 
that they have never fallen ; showing a complete possibility of 
creating free beings, or powers that will never sin ; — at which 
point our doctrine is seen to come into open and direct conflict 
with the Scriptures. 

I have no pleasure, certainly, in raising a conflict with any 
opinion not absolutely corrupt, when it has been so long held, 
and with such unquestioning deference, by multitudes of Chris- 
tian believers. But I am obliged, by the terms of my argument, 
to make a revision of the evidences by which this opinion is 
sustained. In the ante-Copernican conceptions of the universe, 
such an opinion was more likely to be taken up than now ; and 
it seems to be a relic of false interpretation then introduced. I 
find no clear evidence of any such opinion in the Christian 
Scriptures. They do affirm the existence of good angels, who, 
for aught that appears, have all been passed through and 
brought up out of a fall, as the redeemed of mankind will be. 
They affirm the existence also of bad angels, who certainly have 
not been kept from the experiment or choice of evil. A signi- 



THE CASE OF GOOD ANGELS 85 

ficant intimation is supposed to be found in the text — " To the 
intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly 
places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of 
God ;" as if here, for the first time, they were to be instructed 
by the fact of human redemption. But everything manifestly 
turns here on the epithet " manifold " \_irokv iroiiu'kog] , which, 
in fact, means only diversified, not something new and strange ; 
yielding us a hint rather which runs exactly contrary to the 
common opinion, viz., that the heavenly powers discover, only 
through the Church of our world, another plan of grace and 
mercy unfolded different from their own. In respect to the 
"new song," so often referred to in this connexion, it is suffi- 
cient to say that it is joined by beings not of our race, and is 
abundantly new as related to a work of redemption among men ; 
different in form and manner as in sphere from any other. 

But the principal or hinge text on this subject is the 6th 
verse of Jude's Epistle, — " And the angels that kept not their 
first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved," 
etc. ; leaving the implication, it is supposed, that other angels 
have kept their first estate, and stood fast in obedience. But 
this, it has been shown by Mr Faber, in a full and somewhat 
overdone discussion, 1 is a totally mistaken conception of the 
passage. The term "angels," he has shown, refers to the 
" sons of God," whose apostasy is set forth in the 6th chapter 
of Genesis. The term a^n, rendered " first estate," as denot- 
ing a moral condition, has no such meaning in any known 
example. It signifies rather a principate or principality, and 
the representation is, that certain persons of the Sethite, or 
church people, growing lewd and dissolute in their life, went 
over to the corrupt Cainites and joined them in their vices. 
This also is implied in the phrase " left their own habitation" 
[oixrirtyov] , their domicile, or native place and country; lan- 
guage entirely malapropos when referred to celestial beings. 
Besides, their crime was not angelic — the " going after strange 
flesh " — and, what is yet more stringent, their crime is defined 
by a comparison which shows exactly what it was — "Even as 
Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in like manner, 
giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange 
flesh," etc. And, finally, to render this interpretation yet 
more certain, it is shown that Josephus, in speaking of the 

l Three Dispensations, vol. i. pp. 3M-431. 



86 AFFORDS NO YALID OR SCRIPTURAL OBJECTION. 

" sons of God" in Genesis, calls them angels, and uses the same 
word [ag;^] principality, in describing their apostasy. On the 
whole, it does not appear that there is any vestige of authority 
in Scripture for the opinion that the good angels are beings that 
have never sinned. 

Contrary to this, there are many passages that, without being 
severely pressed, might be made to indicate the fact that they 
are all redeemed spirits. Thus, where the desire of " angels to 
look into these things " is spoken of, an indication is given, not 
that they are unacquainted with any such fact as redemption, 
but of the contrary fact, that this appetite is whetted by their 
experience. Why should they be so eager to look into a matter 
wholly unknown ? So when the angels break into the sky at 
the advent of Christ, crying "Peace on earth," they seem to 
know in their deepest heart's feeling already what this "peace" 
signifies. It is remarkable also that the one only text of Scrip- 
ture that could fairly be insisted on, as a direct and formal 
declaration of Scripture on this point, is that of the apostle, when, 
extolling the universal headship of Christ, he says what ap- 
pears to be directly contrary to all these assumptions, — " By 
him to reconcile all things unto himself, whether they be things 
on earth, or things in heaven." 

Falling back, then, upon our own first principles, as required 
by the tenor of our argument, we find that angels, like men, are, 
by the supposition, finite beings. If finite, then are they beings 
who think in succession, one thing after another, as we do. If 
so, then there was a point in the early elate, or first hours of 
their existence, when they had thought little, and had little 
experience, and of course knew as little as they had thought. 
And so, given the fact of their finite and begun existence, it 
seems to follow, as a conclusion, that they were in the same 
weakness, or condition privative, with us. What then, can we 
judge, but that probably there is some ground-principle or law, 
common both to them and to us, that involves them in the same 
fortunes with us, and requires a method of training and redemp- 
tion analogous to that which is ordained for men ? God, as we 
all agree, is a being who works by system — with a glorious 
variety, and yet by system — and it would be singular for His 
plan to break down in some little department like ours, and go 
straight forward to its mark in other and better contrived parts 
of His creation. How much better, and more consonant also to 



SIN NOT IMPLIED AS A MEANS OF GOOD. 87 

oui feeling, to suppose that there is some antecedent necessity 
inherent in the conception of finite and begun existences, that, 
in their training as powers, they should be passed through the 
double experience of evil and good, fall and redemption. 

At the same time, I am not anxious to carry my argument 
so far ; and I readily concede that it might be presumptuous to 
insist on such a conclusion, as being one of the known truths. 
I only ask that a similar concession be allowed on the other 
side, as regards an opinion certainly not authenticated by Scrip- 
ture ; for, when that is taken out of the way as being a scriptural 
objection to my argument, I have no longer any concern with 
it. It may not be amiss to add, further, that what I have here 
advanced in a somewhat positive form concerning sin, I value 
mostly as an hypothesis. Indeed, what we want to clear our 
difficulties here, is not so much a doctrine, as to find that some 
rational hypothesis is possible. And my object is sufficiently 
gained when that is admitted. 

If it should be objected that my doctrine or hypothesis here 
is only another version of the scheme that accounts for sin as 
being the necessary means of the greatest good, it is enough to 
answer that I see no great reason to be concerned for it, even 
if it were. Still I do not perceive that it proposes to account 
for sin as being a means of anything. It makes much of the 
knowledge of sin, or of its bitter consequences, and especially 
of the want of that knowledge, save as it is gotten by the bad 
experience itself. But the knowledge of sin is, in fact, know- 
ing — that is the precise point of it — that it is the means of 
nothing good — that it is evil in all its tendencies, relations, 
operations, and results, and will never bring anything good to 
any being. If, then, the knowing of sin to be the possible 
means of no good is itself a means of good, wherein does it 
appear that I am reproducing the doctrine that sin is the neces- 
sary means of the greatest good ? Because, it may be answered, 
sin, as a fact of consciousness, is by the supposition the neces- 
sary means of the knowledge of sin. But that, I reply, is a 
trick of argumert practised on the word means. Undoubtedly 
sin, as a fact of consciousness, is the necessary subject of the 
knowledge of sin. If it were affirmed that the knowledge of 
certain sunken rocks, in the track of some voyage, is necessary 
to a safe passage, how easy to show, by just the argument here 
employed, that, since the rocks are a necessary means of the 



53 THE TRUE CONCEPTION 

knowledge of the rocks, the rocks are therefore, and by neces- 
sary consequence, the necessary means of a safe passage ! 

There is still another point, the existence of Satan or the 
devil, and the account to be made of him, which is always 
intruded upon discussions of this nature, and cannot well be 
avoided. God, we have seen, might create a realm of things, 
and have it stand firm in its order ; but, if He creates a realm 
of powers, a prior and eternal certainty confronts Him of their 
outbreak in evil. And at just this point we are able, it may 
be, to form some just or not impossible conception of the dia- 
bolical personality. According to the Manichees or disciples of 
Zoroaster, a doctrine virtually accepted by many philosophers, 
two principles have existed together from eternity, one of which 
is the cause of good, and the other of evil ; and by this short 
process they make out their account of evil. With sufficient 
modifications, their account is probably true. Thus, if their 
good principle, called God by us, is taken as a being, and their 
bad principle as only a condition privative, one as a positive 
and real cause, the other as a bad possibility that environs God 
from eternity, waiting to become a fact, and certain to become 
a fact, whenever the opportunity is given, it is even so. And 
then it follows that, the moment God creates a realm of powers, 
the bad possibility as certainly becomes a bad actuality, a Satan 
or devil in esse ; not a bad omnipresence over against God and 
His equal — that is a monstrous and horrible conception — but 
an outbreaking evil, or empire of evil in created spirits, accord- 
ing to their order. For Satan or the devil, taken in the singu- 
lar, is not the name of any particular person, neither is it a 
personation merely of temptation or impersonal evil, as many 
insist ; for there is really no such thing as impersonal evil in 
the sense of moral evil ; but the name is a name that generalizes 
bad persons or spirits, with their bad thoughts and characters, 
many in one. That there is any single one of them who, by 
distinction or pre-eminence, is called Satan or devil, is wholly 
improbable. The name is one taken up by the imagination to 
designate or embody, in a conception the mind can most easily 
wield, the all or total of bad minds and powers. Even as 
Davenport, the ablest theologian of all the New England 
Fathers, represents, in his Catechism ; answering carefully the 
question — " What is the devil ? " — thus : — " The multitude of 



v 



OF SATAN OR THE DEVIL. 89 

apostate angels which, by pride and blasphemy against God, 
and malice against man, became liars and murderers, by tempt- 
ing him to that sin." 

There is also a further reason for this general unifying of the 
bad powers in one, or under one conception, in the fact that 
evil, once beginning to exist, inevitably becomes organic, and 
constructs a kind of principate or kingdom opposite to God. It 
is with all bad spirits, doubtless, as with us. Power is taken by 
the strongest, and weakness falls into a subordinate place of ser- 
vility and abjectness. Pride organizes caste, and dominates in 
the sphere of fashion. Corrupt opinions, false judgments, bad 
manners, and a general body of conventionalisms that represent 
the motherhood of sin, come into vogue and reign. And so, 
doubtless, everywhere, and in all worlds, sin has it in its nature 
to organize, mount into the ascendant above God and truth, and 
reign in a kingdom opposite to God. And, in this view, evil is 
fitly represented in the Scripture as organizing itself under Satan, 
or the devil, or the prince of this world, or the prince of the 
power of the air — no puling fiction of superstition, as many 
fancy, but, rightly conceived, a grand, massive, portentous, and 
even tremendous reality. For though it be true that no such 
bad omnipresence is intended in the term Satan as some appear 
to fancy, there is represented in it an organization of bad mind, 
thought, and power, that is none the less imperial as regards 
resistance. 

At just this point many fall into the easy mistake of suppos- 
ing that the bad organization finds its head in a particular per- 
son or spirit, who has all other bad spirits submissive and loyal 
under his will, and is called Satan as being their king. But 
they press the analogy too far, overlooking the fact that evil is 
as truly and eternally anarchy as organization. It is much 
better to understand, as in reference to bad spirits, what we 
know holds good in respect to the organic force of evil here 
among men. Evil is a hell of oppositions, riots, usurpations, 
in itself, and bears a front of organization only as against good. 
It never made a chief that it would not shortly dethrone, never 
set up any royal Nimrod or family of Nimrods it would not 
some time betray or expel. That the organic force of evil, 
therefore, has ever settled the eternal supremacy of some one 
spirit called devil or Satan, is against the known nature of 
evil. There is no such order, allegiance, loyalty, faith, in evil 



90 THE TRUE CONCEPTION 

as that. The stability of Satan and his empire consists, not in 
the force of some personal chieftainship, but in the fixed array 
of all bad minds, and even of anarchy itself, against what is 
good. 

As regards the naming process by which this devil or Satan 
is prepared, we may easily instruct ourselves by other analogies ; 
such, for example, as "the man of sin" and "antichrist." 
These are the names, evidently, of no particular person. " The 
man of sin " is, in fact, all the men of sin, or the spirit that 
works in them ; for the conception is that, as Christ has brought 
forth a gospel, so it is inevitable that sin will foul that gospel 
in the handling, and be a mystery of iniquity upon it. And 
this mystery of iniquity, as Paul saw, was already beginning 
to work, as work it must, till it is taken out of the way. And 
this working is to be the revelation of evil through the gospel, 
and of the gospel through evil. It includes the dogmatic 
usurpation, the priestly assumptions, the mock sacraments, and 
all the church idols, brought in as improvements — everything 
contributed to and interwoven with the gospel by sin as a 
miracle of iniquity. When that process is carried through, the 
gospel will be understood ; not before. It is also noticeable 
that what the devil or Satan is to God as a spirit, that also 
Antichrist is to Christ, the incarnate God-man. Antichrist is, 
in fact, the devil of Christianity, as Satan is the devil of the 
Creation and Providence. As the devil, too, is singled out and 
made eminent by the definite article, so is Antichrist spoken of 
in the singular as one person. And then again, as there are 
many devils spoken of, so also it is declared that " now there 
are many antichrists." 

Satan, then, is a bad possibility, eternally existing prior to 
the world's creation, becoming or emerging there into a bad 
actuality, which it is the problem of Jehovah's government to 
master. For it has been the plan of God, in the creation and 
training of the powers, so to bring them on as to finally van- 
quish the bad possibility or necessity that environed Him before 
the worlds were made ; so to create and subjugate, or by his 
love regenerate the bad powers loosened by His act of creation, 
as to have them in eternal dominion. And precisely here is He 
seen in the grandeur of His attitude. We might yield to some 
opinion of His weakness, when pondering the dark fatality by 
which he is encompassed in the matter of evil ; but when we 



OF SATAN OR THE DEVIL. 91 

see His plan distinctly laid, as a fowler's when lie sets his net ; 
that He is disappointed by nothing, and that all His counsels 
unfold in their appointed time and order as when a general 
marches on his army in a course of victory ; that He sets good 
empire against evil empire, and, without high words against His 
adversary, calmly proceeds to accomplish a system of order that 
comprehends the subjugation of disorder, what majesty and 
grandeur invest His person ! Nothing which He could have 
done by omnipotence, no silent peace of compulsion, no uncon- 
senting order of things, made fast by His absolute will, could 
have given any such impression of His greatness and glory as 
this loosening of the possibility of evil, in the purpose finally 
to turn it about by His counsel and transform it by His good- 
ness and patience. What significance and sublimity is there, 
holding such a view, in the ecstatic words of Christ, when just 
about to finish His work — " I beheld Satan as lightning fall 
from heaven 1" Nor any the less when His prophet testifies 
after Him — " And the great dragon was cast out, that old 
serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole 
world." " Now is come salvation, and strength, and the king- 
dom of our Lord and of his Christ." 

That salvation, strength, and kingdom, be it also observed, 
are not patches of mending laid upon the rent garment of a 
broken plan, but issues and culminations of the eternal plan 
itself. The cross of redemption is no afterthought, but is itself 
the grand all-dominating idea around which the eternal system 
of God crystallizes; Jesus Christ, the "appointed heir of all 
things " — " the lamb slain from the foundation of the world." 
Here stands out the final end or cause of all things, here emerge 
the powers made strong and glorious. Weak at first, unperfect, 
incomplete, they are now completed and glorified — complete in 
Him who is the head of all principality and power. 



9? THE FACT OF STX 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FACT OP SIN. 

We have been discussing the question of evil as a question of 
possibility, probability, prospect ; we now come down to the 
question of fact — is it, or is it not, a fact that sin exists ? 

But in passing to this question, it appears to be required of 
us to state the object we have in it, and also to indicate, in 
advance, at the stage we have now reached, the course or drift 
of our argument. We propose, then, to show, first of all, the 
fact of sin. This being established, we shall next go into a 
computation or inspection of the effects of sin, and show that 
it is followed and must be by a general disturbance or collapse 
of nature ; what we call nature being, in fact, a state of un- 
nature induced by the penal or retributive action of causes 
provoked by sin. Hence, unless disorder and frustration are to 
be eternal, a second higher movement is required having force 
to restore the lapse of nature ; which higher movement is the 
supernatural work of grace and redemption. In this view the 
unity itself of the system of God comprehends, it will be seen, 
two ranges of existence and operative force — nature and the 
supernatural ; both complimentary to each other ; while the 
latter, comprising the powers, and all divine agencies exerted in 
their restoration, and containing all the last ends and highest 
workings and only perfect results of God's plan, is, by the 
supposition, chief above the other ; having that to serve its 
uses, and be the organ of its exercise. The creation, therefore, 
is made for Christianity, and without that, as a kingdom super- 
natural, the kingdom of nature is only an absurd and frag- 
mentary existence, having no significance or end. The argu- 
ment will lead me, of course, to an examination of some of the 
supernatural facts, or supposed facts, of Christianity. 



THE FACT OF SIN 93 

I am well aware of the necessary obscurity of this statement, 
but as it is offered rather to indicate the course than to convey 
any sufficient impression of the argument proposed, I hope it 
may at least satisfy the purpose intended. 

I begin then with the question, whether it is a real and pro- 
per fact that sin exists ? In discussing this question, I abstain 
altogether from any close theologic definition of sin. Un- 
doubtedly there is a something called sin in the Christian writ- 
ings, which is not action or wrong-doing — something not 
included in the Pelagian definitions of sin, as commonly pre- 
sented. But my argument requires me to look no farther at 
present than to this, which is the simplest conception of the 
subject, inquiring whether there is any such thing in the world 
as properly blamable action ? Is there a transgression of right 
or of law — a positive disobedience to God — anything that 
rationally connects with remorse, or carries the sense of guilt 
as a genuine reality ? Of course it is implied that the trans- 
gressor does what no mere thing, nothing in the line of cause 
and effect, can do — acts against God ; or, what is nowise dif- 
ferent, against the constituent harmony of things issued from 
the will of God. Hence the bad conscience, the sense of guilt 
or blame ; that the wrong-doer recognizes in the act something 
from himself that is not from any mere principle of nature, not 
from God, contrary to God. 

It appears in one view to be quite idle to raise this question. 
Why should we undertake the serious discussion of a question 
that every man has settled ? Why argue for a fact that every 
man acknowledges ? It would indeed be quite nugatory if 
all mankind could definitely see what they acknowledge. 
But they do not, and, what is more, many are abundantly 
ingenious to escape doing it. In fact, all the naturalism of 
our day begins just here, in the denial or disguised disallow- 
ance of this self-evident and everywhere visible fact, the exist- 
ence of sin. Sometimes, where no such denial is intended 
or thought of, it is yet virtually made in the assumption of 
some theory or supposed principle of philosophy, which, legiti- 
mately carried out, conducts and will conduct other minds also 
to the formal denial, both of the fact of sin and of that respon- 
sibility which is its necessary precondition. We have thus a 
large class holding the condition of implicit naturalism, who 
asserts what amounts to a denial of responsibility, and so of the 



94 OFTEN DENIED UNDESIGNEDLY. 

possibility of sin, without denying formally the fact, or conceiv- 
ing that any truth of Christianity as a supernatural religion is 
brought in question. Of these we may cite, as a prominent 
instance and example, the phrenologists, who are many of them 
disciples and earnest advocates of the Christian doctrine. Still 
it is not difficult to see that, if human actions are nothing but 
results brought to pass or determined by the ratios of so many 
quantities of brain at given points under the skull, then are 
they no more fit subjects of reward or blame than the motions 
of the stars, determined also by their quantities of matter. 
Therefore some phrenologists add the conception of a higher 
nature than the pulpy quantities ; a person, a free-will power, 
presiding over them and only using them as its incentives and 
instruments, but never mechanically determined by them. This 
takes phrenology out of the conditions of naturalism, and, for 
just the same reason, and in the same breath, renders sin a 
possibility ; otherwise the science, however fondly accepted as 
the ally of Christianity (a sorry kind of ally at the best), is only 
a tacit and implicit form of naturalism, that virtually excludes 
the faith of Christianity. 

On the other hand, we have met with advocates of natural- 
ism, who have not been quite able to deny the existence of s sin, 
or who even assert the fact in ways of doubtful significance. 
Thus Mr Parker, in his Discourses of Religion, having it for his 
main object to disprove the credibility of miracles and of every- 
thing supernatural in Christianity, still admits in words the 
existence of sin. He even accounts it one of the merits of 
Calvinistic and Lutheran orthodoxy that it "shows (we quote 
his own language) the hatefulness of sin and the terrible evils it 
brings upon the world;" 1 and, what is yet more decisive, he 
represents it as being one of the faults of the moderate school 
of Protestants, that "they reflect too little on the evil that comes 
from violating the law of God." 2 And yet the whole matter of 
supernaturalism, which he is discussing, hinges on precisely this 
and nothing else, viz., the question whether there is any such 
thing as a real " violation of the law of God," any " hatefulness 
in sin," any " terrible evils brought on the world " by means of 
it. For to violate the law of God is itself an act supernatural, 
out of the order of nature, and against the order of nature, as 
truly even as a miracle, else it is nothing. The very sin of the 

J Discourse of Religion, p. 453. 2 Ibid. p. 465. 



AMBIGUOUS DOCTRINE OF MR PARKER. P5 

sin is that it is against God, and everything that comes from 
God ; the acting of a soul or power against the constituent frame 
of nature and its internal harmony, followed, therefore, as in 
due time we shall show, by real disorder of nature, which noth- 
ing but a supernatural agency of redemption can ever effectually 
repair. Of this, the fundamental fact on which, in reality, the 
whole question he is discussing turns, he takes no manner of 
notice. Admitting the existence of sin, his speculations still go 
on their way, as if it were a fact of no significance in regard to 
his argument. If he had sounded the question of sin more 
deeply, ascertaining what it is and what it involves, he might 
well enough have spared himself the labour of his book. He 
either would never have written it at all, or else he would have 
denied the existence of sin altogether, as being only a necessary 
condition of the supernatural. 

And we are the more confirmed in the opinion that his denial 
of supernaturalism begins in a state of mental ambiguity re- 
specting sin, from the fact that exactly this ambiguity is mani- 
fested in his work itself. Thus, when speaking of the wrongs 
and the oppressive inequalities discovered in the distributions of 
society, he refers them, if we understand him rightly, to causes 
in human nature, not to the will, in its abuse or breach of 
nature. He says, " We find the root of all in man himself. 
In him is the same perplexing antithesis which we meet in all 
his works. These conflicting things existed as ideas in him 
before they took their present concrete shape. Discordant 
causes [in his nature, we understand] have produced effects not 
harmonious. Out of man these institutions have grown ; out 
of his passions or his judgment, his senses or his soul. Taken 
together, they are the exponent which indicates the character 
and degree of development the race has now attained." 1 Out 
of his passions or his judgment, his senses or his soul ! Whence, 
then, did they come ? for this appears to be a little ambiguous. 
And what if it should happen that they came out of neither — 
out of no ground or cause in nature whatever, but out of the 
will as a power transcending nature. If these bitter wrongs of 
society, such as war, slavery, and the like, which Mr Parker 
has so often denounced in terms so nearly violent, kindling, as 
it were, a hell of words in which to burn them before the time ; 
if these bitter wrongs are nothing but developments of " dis- 

1 Discourses of Beligion, p. 12. 



96 ASSUMPTION OF FOURIER. 

cordant causes " in human nature, then wherein are they to be 
blamed ? " Violations of the law of God ! " Do (rod's own 
causes violate His law ? Bringing "terrible evils on the world ! " 
How upon the world, when God himself has put the evils in it, 
as truly as he has put the legs of a frog in the tadpole out of 
which it grows ? " Hatefulness of sin ! " Is the mere develop- 
ment of God's own constituted works and causes hateful ? Is 
the dog-star morally hateful because it rises in July ? 

But the advocates of naturalism are commonly more thorough 
and consistent ; not consistent with each other, that is too 
much to be expected, but consistent with themselves, in trying 
each to find some way of disallowing sin, or so far explaining it 
away, as to reduce it within the terms of mere cause and effect 
in nature. Thus, for example, Fourier conceives that what we 
call sin, by a kind of misnomer, is predicable only of society, 
not of the individual man. Considered as creatures of God, 
all men, as truly as the first man before sin, have and continue 
always to have a right and perfect nature, in the same manner 
as the stars. He accordingly assumes it as the fundamental 
principle of the new science, that " man's attractions," like 
theirs, " are proportioned to his destinies ; " so that, by means 
of his passions, he will even gravitate naturally toward the 
condition of order and wellbeing, with the same infallible 
certainty as they. It only happens that society is not fitly 
organized, and that produces all the mischief. There really is 
no sin, apart from the fact that men have not had the science 
to organize society rightly. He does not appear to notice the 
fact that if these human stars, called men, are all harmoniously 
tempered and set in a perfect balance of inward attractions, by 
them to be swayed under the laws of cause and effect, that fact 
is organization, the very harmony of the spheres itself. And 
then the assumption that society is not fitly organized, or badly 
disorganized, is simply absurd ; not less absurd the hope that 
man is going to scheme it into organization himself. Doubtless 
society is badly enough organized, but we have no place for 
the fact, and can have none, till we look on men as powers, not 
under cause and effect ; capable, in that manner, of sin, and 
liable to it ; through the bad experiment of it, to be trained up 
into character, which is itself the completed organization of 
felicity. Under this view bad organization or disorganization 
is possible, because sin is possible ; and will be a fact, as 



DENIAL OF DR STRAUSS. 9? 

certainly as sin is a fact — otherwise neither possible nor a 
' fact. 

But as we are dismissing, in this manner, the inconsequent 
and baseless theory of Fourier, there comes up, on the other 
side, exactly opposite to him, the very celebrated theologian of 
naturalism, Dr Strauss, who inverts the main point of Fourier, 
charging all the misdoings and miseries of the human state, 
commonly called sins, on the individual, leaving society blame- 
less and even perfect. Finding the word sin asserting a right- 
ful place in human language, he is not so unphilosophical as to 
insist on its being cast out ; on the contrary, he even speaks 
of "the sinfulness of human nature ; " but by this he under- 
stands only that individuals must needs suffer so much of per- 
sonal mischief and defect, in a way of carrying on the historic 
development of the race. In this view he says, " Humanity 
[i.e., taken as a whole] is the sinless existence ; for the course 
of its development is a blameless one ; pollution cleaves to the 
individuals only, and does not touch the race and its history." 
' ' Sinful human nature ' ' turns out, in this manner, to be the 
" sinless existence." The individuals whom we call - sinners," 
and regard as under " pollution," are yet seen to be " blameless " 
sinners ; so ingeniously " polluted," that the pollution which 
infects all the individuals does not once touch the race ! If 
there be any miracle in supernaturalism more wonderful than 
this, let us be informed where it is. The truth appears to be 
that Dr Strauss could not formally deny the fact of sin, and yet 
had no place for it. He threw it, therefore, into a limbo of 
ambiguities, where he could recognize it a fact, and yet make 
nothing of it. 

Still there is so much of ingenuity in this method of getting 
rid of sin, the absurdity of it is disguised under so fine a show 
of philosophy, that much weaker and less cultivated men than 
Dr Strauss anticipated him in it, and, without knowing, as 
well as he, what their wise saying meant, were as greatly 
pleased as he with the plausible air of it. Pope rhymes it thus, 
a hundred ways, that, — 

"Respecting man, whatever wrong we call 
May, must be right, as relative to all." 

The popular literature of our time, represented by such 
writers as Carlyle and Emerson, is in a similar vein ; not always 
denying sin, for to lose it would be to lose the spice and spirit 



98 APPEAL TO OBSERVATION 

of half their representations of humanity ; but contriving 
rather to exalt ancf glorify it, by placing both it and virtue upon 
the common footing of a natural use and necessity. Glorifying 
also themselves in the plausible audacity of their offence ; for 
it is one of the frequent infirmities of literature that it courts 
effect by taking on the airs of licentiousness. 

But this kind of originality has now come to its limit or 
point of reaction ; for, when licentiousness becomes a theory, 
regularly asserted, and formally vindicated, it is then no better 
than truth. The poetry is gone, and it dies of its own flatness. 
Thus we have seen a volume, recently issued from the American 
press, the formal purpose of which is to show, even as a 
Christian fact, the blamelessness of sin ; nay more, that the 
main object of Jesus Christ in his mission of love, is to disabuse 
the world of the imposture, deliver it of the terrible nightmare 
of sin. Not to deliver it of sin itself — that is a mistake — but 
to deliver it of the conviction of sin, as an illusive and baneful 
mistake gendered by the superstition of the world ! If any- 
thing can be taken for a certain proof that mankind are in- 
fatuated by some strange illusion, such as sin alone may breed, 
it would seem to be the fact itself that they are able to impose 
upon themselves and one another, by these feeble perversities 
that despite of all the best known, best attested facts of life, 
contrive to put on still the airs of science and maintain the pre- 
tences of reason. 

Passing on from these oppositions of science, falsely so called, 
let us refer to some of the formal proofs that sin is an existing 
fact. Scripture authority is out of the question, which we do 
not regret ; for the practical and palpable evidences that meet 
us in the simple inspection of humanity itself are abundantly 
sufficient. 

The question here, it will be observed, is not whether men 
are totally depraved or depraved at all ; nor whether they sin 
continually ; but simply whether they do actually sin ? — 
whether, in fact, sin exists ? Nor is it implied that all sins are 
equally blameable ; for, beyond a question, great numbers 
of persons are steeped in contaminating influences from their 
earliest childhood, and pass into life under the heaviest loads of 
moral disadvantage. Regarding their acts, nothing is sin to 
such, but what they do as sin. The object we have in view is 



APPEAL TO OBSERVATION. 99 

sufficiently answered by the adequate proof of a single sin ; for 
the argument of naturalism goes the length of denying all sin, 
even the possibility of sin ; so that if one man is able, as a 
power, to break out of nature and do a sin against it, the whole 
theory is dissolved. The power of liberty that can do one sin 
can do more ; and if only one man has it, he must either be a 
miracle himself, or else other men can do the same. 

We begin with an appeal to observation, alleging as a fact 
that we do, by inevitable necessity, impute blame to acts of in- 
jury done us by others. We can as easily avoid making a 
shadow in the sun, as we can avoid a sentiment of blame, when 
we are designedly injured by a fellow man. We do it, not as 
a pettish child may pelt a thistle on which he has trodden, not 
in any dispossessed state or momentary fit of anger, but even 
after years of reflection have passed away ; nay, after we have 
bathed the wrong done us, for so long a time, in the cleansing 
waters of forgiveness. Still we condemn the wrong, and must, 
as long as we exist ; our forgiveness itself implies that we do ; 
for what is there to be forgiven, if there be nothing that we 
condemn ? Thus, if there be two partners in trade, and one of 
them absconds with all the profits and funds of the establish- 
ment, leaving the other, with his family, victims to the common 
liabilities, and to a necessary doom, for life, of poverty ; by what 
art can either he or they ever manage to eradicate their sense 
of wrong, or the blame they impute to the perfidious man whose 
crime has been the dispoiler of their life ? They may forgive 
him, they may follow him with their prayers to the hour of 
his last breath, but they will pray as for a guilty man, whose 
crime is the bitterness of his life, as it has been the burden of 
theirs. 

Suppose now they turn philosophers and make the discovery 
that there is no sin, that all actions take place under the neces- 
sary law of cause and effect, and manage to smooth over with 
this fine apology, all the crimes they hear of in the world; 
still that one man that robbed them of their all — how stubborn 
a fact is he, how unreducible to their theory ! His very name 
means all that sin ever means, and they can as easily tear out 
their own heart-strings, as they can empty that name of the 
blame it signifies. 

Or suppose a man writes a book, the precise object of which 



100 APPEAL TO CONSCIOUSNESS. 

is to show that there is, and can be no such thing as sin, and 
then that his work is assaulted, as he thinks, with unfair re- 
presentations and malicious constructions, what will you more 
certainly see, than that he is out immediately against his ac- 
cusers, in the most violent denunciations of their bigotry, and 
the wicked untruths of their criticism ? Now, if the book was 
true, if there is no sin that is blameable, what have they done to 
be so bitterly blamed ? What they have done is simply natural, 
and is no more to be condemned than a frosty night. It will 
nowise diminish the force of our supposition to add that it might 
well enough be given as historic fact. In which, also, we may 
see how certainly every man's rational and moral instincts will 
triumph, after all, over his theories and formal arguments, when 
he undertakes to deny or disprove the fact of sin. 

We go farther. So confident are we in this matter that, if 
there be any man living who undertakes to be consistent in the 
denial of sin, setting it down, however firmly, as a point of will, 
never to blame any injury done to others or to himself, we will 
engage, in case he is able to spend four waking hours without 
any single thought or feeling of blame as against any human 
creature, to admit the truth of his doctrine. 

We have another proof, in the fact that we as positively and 
necessarily blame ourselves ; not in everything — my argument 
does not require me to go that length — enough that we do it 
on particular occasions, distinctly noted and remembered. And 
here we are bold to affirm that every person of a mature age, 
and in his right mind, remembers turns or crises in his life, 
where he met the question of wrong face to face, and by a hard 
inward struggle broke through the sacred convictions of duty 
that rose up to fence him back. It was some new sin to which 
he had not become familiar, so much worse perhaps in degree 
as to be the entrance to him consciously of a new stage of guilt. 
He remembers how it shook his soul and even his body ; how 
he shrank in guilty anticipation from the new step of wrong ; 
the sublime misgiving that seized him, the awkward and but 
half-possessed manner in which it was taken, and then afterward, 
perhaps, even after years have passed away, how, in some quiet 
hour of the day or wakeful hour of night, as the recollection of 
that deed — not a public crime, but a wrong, or an act of vice — 
returned upon him, the blood rushed back for the moment on 



APPEAL TO CONSCIOUSNESS. 101 

his fluttering heart, the pores of his skin opened, and a kind of 
agony of shame and self-condemnation, in one word, of remorse, 
seized his whole person. This is the consciousness, the guilty 
pang of sin ; every man knows what it is. 

We have also observed this peculiarity in such experiences, 
that it makes no difference at all what temptations we were 
under ; we probably enough do not even think of them ; our 
soul appears to scorn apology, as if some higher nature within, 
speaking out of its eternity, were asserting its violated rights, 
chastising the insult done to its inborn affinities with immutable 
order and divinity, and refusing to be farther humbled by the 
low pleadings of excuse and disingenuous guilt. To say, at such 
a time, the woman tempted me, I was weak, I was beguiled, I 
was compelled by fear and overcome, signifies nothing. The 
wrong was understood, and that suffices. 

Nor is it only in these times of conscious compunction that 
we are seen to blame ourselves as transgressors. We do it 
tacitly or unconsciously, in ways that are even more striking. 
Thus it may be seen that large assemblies of men, not the worst 
of their species, not the ignorant, or the broken- spirited victims 
of depression, not the felons or outcasts of society, but the most 
intelligent, most honest and honourable, and generally most ex- 
emplary as regards their conduct, will come together once in 
seven days, and sit down to the exposure and charge of their 
sin, without even a thought of offence or insult. And what is 
more, that kind of preaching which probes them most faithfully, 
and most disturbs their consciences, will most invite their at- 
tendance, if only there is no violence or fanaticism in the manner. 
Any sober and rational exposure of their sin, however piercing, 
they will submit to, take it as their privilege, and pay for it 
cheerfully, year by year ! Why now is this ? Simply because 
they are sinners, and know the charge to be true. Were they 
charged in this manner with being thieves, pickpockets, or 
assassins, all husbands and wives arraigned as false, all children 
as parricides, all citizens as perjurers and traitors, all merchants 
and bankers as dishonest and fraudulent dealers, they would 
instantly repel the charge ; their indignation could not be 
restrained for a moment. Nor is it anything to say that they 
have been educated into the faith that they are transgressors, 
living in the guilt of sin, and submit to the charge as to one of 
their superstitions. It is not as being a dogma that the charge 



102 OUR INDICATIONS SHOW 

has any reality to them ; indeed they often repel it as such and 
deny it. It has never any power, till it is wielded in such a 
manner as to stir the consciousness, and draw out thence a fresh 
verdict of conviction. 

We do then hlame ourselves. It is one of the most real and 
tremendous facts of our consciousness ; which, if a man will 
seek to explain away, by resolving it into cause and effect, it 
will yet remain, defying and scorning all his arguments. He 
knows that he himself did the sin, and no cause hack of him- 
self. It is a fact, self-pronounced in his consciousness, and of 
which he can no more divest himself than he can stay the con- 
sciousness of his existence. Chloroform may rid him of it, but 
not argument. 

Again, it is a fact constantly perceived, that where men do 
not occupy themselves with thoughts of blame, or conscious 
admissions of guilt, they are yet exercised in ways that imply 
it, and prove it only the more convincingly. The moment we 
look out upon the race, and take note of mankind, as revealed 
in their most superficial demonstrations, we discover that they 
are out of rest, plagued by the foul demon of guilt. A male- 
factor aspect invests their conduct. Not by altars only of 
sacrifice, smoking under every sky ; not by pilgrimages, absti- 
nences, vigils, flagellations of the body, self-immolations, and 
other voluntary tortures ; not by the giving way even of natural 
affection before this dreadful horror of the mind, yielding up 
the children of the body to pacify the sins of the soul — not by 
these misdirected expedients and pains of guilt alone do we dis- 
cover its existence, but by others more silent and convincing. 

Take, for a single example, the remarkable fact of a univer- 
sal shyness of God — a fact conceded by society, and made the 
basis even of a common law of politeness. Why is this, why 
is it accepted as a universal law of politeness, never to obtrude 
upon others the subject of religion, or of God and the soul, 
without some previous intimation or discovery that the subject 
will not be unwelcome ? Because it is presumed not to be 
welcome. It is not because God and the soul are questionable 
realities — we love to converse of things unreal or imaginary, 
as well as of those which are real. It is not because, being 
real, they are matters about which there are many different 
opinions — so there are about politics, literature, philosophy, 



THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN. 103 

science, art, and almost every other subject. It is not because, 
being real, God is not the loftiest, purest, and, in Himself, most 
ennobling, most inspiring, most radiant subject of communica- 
tion ; His government the richest fountain of wisdom ; and the 
soul an interest to itself that dwarfs all others. Neither is it 
because a population of pure, angelic intelligences, occupying 
this same world of ours, and immersed in similar employments, 
would not meet the vision of God in all His works, and would 
not hasten to refresh themselves in these transcendent themes. 
The only and true explanation is that God and the soul are 
themes that move disturbance. They suggest blame, they lace- 
rate, in this manner, the comfort of the mind. So well un- 
derstood is it that mankind are shy of God, and that humanity 
is itself the sign of a bad conscience, that it is tacitly voted and 
becomes an accepted. law of politeness, never to approach this 
one proscribed subject, without a previous discovery that it can 
be done without offence. 

Nor is it any excuse or clearance of the sign, to say that 
manifestly such subjects ought not to be promiscuously spoken 
of in all places and circles. This we admit. Still the question 
is, why they may not ? And the only answer is that which 
we have given, that men are under a subtle and tacit but 
damning sense of blame, and cannot bear, on all occasions, or 
anywhere but in the public assemblies of religion, to have sub- 
jects introduced that remind them of it, and stir again the guilt 
of their conscience. There would never be any such places or 
occasions in a population of sinless beings. 

Is this tacit blame, then, that appears to haunt the world and 
drive it from its rest, a mere fiction ? Are we still under cause 
and effect, as truly as a river flowing toward the ocean, only 
not able ourselves to discover the fact ? Bitter hardship that 
we cannot be allowed the placidity of the river ! "" 

We have yet another proof, in the fact that mankind are 
seen to be acting universally on the assumption, that wrong is 
done, or is likely to be done in the world. Every man of busi- 
ness, having only ordinary intelligence, assumes it as a point of 
natural discretion, that he is beset with wrong-doers, who will 
take every advantage and seize every opportunity, and holds it 
as a first maxim to trust no man till he has somehow given a 
title to confidence. Not that men are generally weak, and prone 
to what is miscalled wrong, by reason of their natural infirmity. 



104 WE ACT ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT 

Contrary to this, it is the very point of his concern, that they 
are so capable and so ready to be wicked in the use of their 
capacity. The smallest part of his concern is to look out for 
such as may fail him by their lack of energy or talent, and these 
are a class by themselves. To guard against the others is his 
principal study, and they are so many, so greedy, and plausible, 
and false, and hasten to the prey by so many methods, that his 
only safety is in the presumption that every man will take ad- 
vantage and do him a wrong if he can. 

So, in what is called family government, everything is set 
upon a footing that anticipates wrong. Otherwise we might 
exist in a family state and never hear or think of a government 
as pertaining to it, any more than we now do of a government 
in the garden, to preside over the conduct of the flowers. In- 
deed, if there is no danger of wrong-doing in children, the 
forming of perverse tempers, the indulgence of wicked passions, 
the breaking down by wills unchastened, of all sacred principles, 
why not suffer them to unfold naturally, as the flowers do ; for 
even inexperience and neglect will as certainly blossom into 
virtue, if virtue it can be called, as they into their own odours 
and colours. Contrary to this, we assume the need of govern- 
ment, that is of authority, command, correction, that the be- 
ginnings of evil may be checked, and principles of virtue 
established. Doubtless there is such a thing as unrighteous 
and barbarous severity practised in the name of government ; 
still there must be government ; for whatever parent under- 
takes to act on the assumption that the misdoing will be only 
mistake or inexperience, and no intended or blamable wrong 
(as we understand some are now doing, in order to justify their 
theories), will assuredly find that something comes to pass, in 
the history of their children, that is a great deal more like 
wrong than they could wish ! 

Why, again, do we organize the civil state, why fence about 
society with laws, enforcing them by severe and even sanguinary 
punishments ? If there is no blamable wrong in the world or 
danger of any, why so careful to defend ourselves against what 
our laws, by a mistake, call wrongs or crimes ; such as frauds, 
forgeries, robberies, violations of liberty, character, and chastity, 
murders, assassinations ? Why these manifold acts of penal 
legislation against wrong-doing, if wrong, as a matter of blame, 
is out of the question, or if nothing has ever occurred in the 



WRONGS ARE A PERIL TO OUR EXISTENCE. 105 

world to suggest the fact, and discover the danger of wrong ? 
The answer to all this will be, that what we call wrong, in this 
manner, is public evil, and must be restrained, but still is not 
really blamable, because it takes place under laws of nature, 
and by natural necessity. Are we then expecting, in this 
manner, to punish and put a stop to the laws of nature? and 
so to perform, by legislation, the miracles we deny in our argu- 
ments ? What' means this array of courts, constables, and 
marshals, the grated prisons, the hurdles and scaffolds, the 
solemn farce of trials and penal sentences ? Are they simply 
barriers or institutes of defence, in which we array causes 
against the harmful action of other causes, as the Hollanders 
raise dykes against the sea ? Then why do we call this " crimi- 
nal law ? " and why has it never occurred to the Hollanders 
to conceive that their dykes are raised against the criminal mis- 
doings of the sea ? 

Besides, we are afraid even of the law ; trying, by every 
method possible, to invent checks and balances against usurpa- 
tions and abuses of power ; so to make power responsible, and 
to hedge about even our tribunals of justice by penal enactments 
against bribery, connivance, and arbitrary contempt of law ; as 
if wanting still some defence against even our defenders, and 
the more terrible wrongs they are like to perpetrate, in the 
abuse of those powers which have been committed to their 
hands. And then, again, when the people, groaning for long 
years under the misrule of a tyrant, rise up against him, insti- 
gated by the woes they have suffered, and pluck him down from 
his throne, bring him to solemn trial and sentence him to die, 
do they lay no blame on his head, or do they only cut off the 
thing, as the blameless impediment to their rights and liberties ? 

We perceive, in this manner, how the whole superstructure 
of the civil order rests on the conviction that sin is in the 
world. We assume it as a fact, the terrible fact, of human 
existence. No one doubts it, save here and there some busy 
Sophist, who thinks to hold his theories against all fact and 
experience, and against the spontaneous, practical judgments of 
the race — protected, while he does it, in the very liberty of his 
mind, and the life of his body, by laws that, under his theories, 
might as well set themselves to forbid the fermentation of 
substances, or to arraign and punish the poisonous growth of 
vegetables. 



106 SATIRE AND TRAGEDY 

We have still another class of proofs, that are more subtle and 
closer to what may be called the latent sense of the soul ; and 
for just that reason, as much more convincing, when once they 
are brought into the light ; we speak of certain sentiments that 
appear to be universal, and the natural validity of which we 
never suspect. 

Take, for a first example, the sentiment or virtue of forgive- 
ness. Does any one doubt the reality of forgiveness ? does 
any one refuse to commend forgiveness as a necessary and even 
noble virtue ? Forgiveness to what ? Forgiveness to cause 
and effect, forgiveness to the weather, forgiveness to the mildew, 
or the fly that brings the blasted harvest ? No ! forgiveness 
to wrong, blamable and guilty wrong. Forgiveness and wrong 
are relative terms. If there is nothing to blame there is no- 
thing to forgive. One of two things, then, must be true ; either 
that there has been some blamable wrong in the world, or else 
that the forgiveness we think of, speak of, inculcate, and com- 
mend, is a baseless phantom, out of all reality, as destitute of 
dignity and beauty as of solidity and truth. Indeed, there is no 
place in human language for the word, any more than for the 
naming of a sixth sense that does not exist. 

The pleasure we take in satire may be cited as another 
example. This pleasure consists in cauterizing, or seeing 
cauterized by wit, the perverse follies, the abortive pride, or the 
absurd airs and manners of such as morally deserve this kind 
of treatment. Satire supposes a free and responsible subject, 
who might be seriously blamed, but can be more efficiently 
treated by this lighter method, which, instead of denouncing 
the guilt, plays off the absurdities, and mocks the sorry figure 
of sin. Satire supposes demerit, or a blamable defect of virtue ; 
and, where the mark is too high to be reached by rebuke or 
civil 'indictment, even crime may be fitly chastised by it. The 
point to be distinctly noted is, that there is no place for satire, 
and we have no sympathy with it, except where there is, or is 
supposed to be, some kind of moral delinquency or ill desert. 
No poet thinks to satirize the sea, or a snow storm, or a club 
foot, or a monkey, or a fool. But he takes a man, a sinning 
man, who has deformed himself by his excesses, perversities, or 
crimes, and against him invokes the terrible Nemesis of wit 
and satire. Kegarding him simply as a thing, under the laws 
of cause and effect, we should have as little satisfaction or 



SUPPOSE THE FACT OF SIN. 10? 

pleasure in the infliction, as if it were laid upon a falling 
body. 

We have yet another and sublimer illustration, in the abysses 
of the tragic sentiment — that which imparts an interest so 
profound to human history, to the novel and the drama, and 
even to the crucifixion of Jesus himself. The staple matter 
of emotion, all that so profoundly moves our feeling in these 
records of fact and fiction, is that here we look upon the conflict 
of good and bad powers, the glory and suffering of one, the 
hellish art and malice of the other, followed or not followed by 
the sublime vindications of providential justice. It is the war, 
actual or imagined, of beauty and deformity, good and evil, in 
their higher examples. In this view, we have a deeper sense 
of awe, a vaster movement of feeling, in the contemplation of 
a man, a mere human creature, in a character demonized by 
passion, than we have in the rage of the sea, or the bursting 
fire-storm of a volcano ; because we regard him as a power — a 
bad will doing battle with God and the world. Be it a Mac- 
beth, an Othello, a Richard, a Faust, a Napoleon, or only the 
Jew Fagin, we follow him to his end, quivering as under some 
bad spell, only then to breathe again with freedom, when the 
storm of his destiny is over, and the wild fiery mystery that 
struggled in his passion is solved. But suppose it were to come 
to us, in the heat of our tragic exultation, as a real conviction, 
that these characters are, after all, only natural effects, mere 
frictions of things, acting from no free power in themselves ; 
forthwith, at the instant, every feeling of interest vanishes, and 
we care no more for their petty tumults than we do for the 
effervescence of a salt, or the skim that mantles a pool. All 
tragic movement ceases when the powers make their exit ; for, 
if now we call them men, they yet are only things, like Lion, 
Wall, and Moonshine, left to fill the stage with their absurd 
mockeries. What means it now for the Lady Macbeth to be 
crying to the blood, "Out, damned spot!" if there is no 
longer any such thing as a damned spot of guilt in her mur- 
derous soul? Expunge the faith of that, and the rage of her 
remorse turns at once to comedy — that, and nothing more. 

Now, in these and other like sentiments, constantly brought 
into play, spontaneous, clear of all affectation, never questioned 
as absurdities or fictions, we encounter some of the sublimest, 
most irresistible evidences that men are capable of sin, and are 



108 MISDIRECTION NOT SIN. 

in it. If it is not so, then it is very clear that all the deepest 
sentiments of the human bosom are only impostures of natural 
weakness, destitute of dignity as of truth. 

It remains to add that the objections offered to disprove the 
existence of sin, and the solutions of what is called sin, advanced 
by the naturalists, are insufficient and futile, and even imply 
the fact itself. Most of these have been already answered in 
the course of our argument, such as that the acting of a 
creature against God is inconceivable ; for such a capacity was 
shown to be included in the very conception of a free agent or 
power ; that if God really desires no sin, He has all force to 
prevent it ; for a power, it was shown, is not immediately con- 
trollable by force ; — that sin supposes a breach of God's system ; 
for His system is a system, we have seen, not of things, but of 
powers, and maintains the organic nisus of its aim as perfectly 
among the discords it has undertaken to reduce arid assimilate, 
as if no act of discord had occurred. Meantime it will be seen 
that the notion of evil, most commonly advanced by the natu- 
ralizing sceptics, is one that really involves and admits the 
guilt of sin, even though advanced to clear it of the element of 
guilt. " Misdirection " is the word they apply — they call it 
misdirection — and in this, or something answering to this, they 
universally agree. Even where there is only a partially deve- 
loped system of naturalism, and the existence of sin is not for- 
mally denied, a certain affinity for this word will be discovered. 
Thus Mr Parker, speaking of piracy, war, and the slave trade, 
suggests that these and similar evils are wrongs that come of 
the " abuse, misdirection, and disease of human nature." 1 This 
word misdirection has the advantage that it slips all recognition 
of blame or responsibility, because it brings into view no real 
agency or responsible agent. And hence it becomes a favourite 
word, and is formally proposed by many advocates of naturalism 
as the philosophic synonym of sin. 

Be it so, then ; put it down as agreed that sin is misdirec- 
tion, and that so far there is a real something in it. Then 
comes the question, Who is it, what is it, that misdirects ? Is 
the misdirection of God ? That will not be said. Mr Parker 
uses also, it will be observed, the term " disease." Will it then 
be said that piracy, war, and the slave trade, are the misdirec- 

1 Discourses of Religion, p. 13. 



MISDIRECTION NOT SIN. 109 

tions only of disease, as when the hand of a lunatic, misdirected 
by a pressure on the brain, takes the life of his friend ? Was 
it only for such innocent misdirection as this that Mr Parker 
inveighed so bitterly against the great statesman of New Eng- 
land as having bowed himself to slavery ? Was it then the 
misdirection of cause and effect in the constituent principles of 
human nature ? This indeed appears to be intimated in another 
place, when it is declared that " discordant causes have pro- 
duced effects not harmonious." * Is the boasted system, then, 
of nature a discordant, blundering, misdirecting system ? If 
so, it should not be wholly incredible that nature may sometime 
blunder into a miracle. Is it then given us, for our privilege, 
to look over the sad inventory of the world's history, the cor- 
ruptions of truth and religion, the bloody persecutions, the mas- 
sacres of the good, the revolutions against oppressions and 
oppressors, and the combinations of power to crush them, if suc- 
cessful, caste, slavery and the slave trade, piracy and war, 
tramping in blood over desolated cities and empires — can we 
look on these and have it as our soft impeachment to say, that 
they are only the misdirections of discordant causes in human 
nature ? That has never been the sense of mankind, and never 
can be. There is no account to be made of these misdirections, 
till we bring into view man as he is, a power capable of mis- 
directing himself and guilty in it, because he does it, swayed by 
no causes in or out of himself, but by his own self- determining 
will. 

Doubtless there is abundance of misdirection ; almost every- 
thing we know is misdirected ; the world is full of it ; the 
whole creation groaneth in the sorrows, wrongs, punishments, 
and p^'ms of it. And then we have it as the true account of all, 
that mai. ^s the grand misdirector. He turns God's world into 
a hell of misdirection, and that is his sin. Apart from this, 
any such thing as misdirection is inconceivable. Nature yields 
no such thing; and if man is a part only of nature, under hei 
necessary laws of cause and effect, there will be as little place 
for misdirection in his activities, as there is in the laws of 
chemistry, or even of the solar system. The plea of misdirec- 
tion, therefore, is itself a concession of the fact of sin, which 
fact we now assume to be sufficiently established to support and 
be a sure foundation for our future argument. 

1 Discourses of Eelioion. p. VI. 



110 1HE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN. 

It is very evident that, if sin is a fact, it must be followed 
by important consequences ; for, as it has a moral significance 
considered in the aspect of blameworthiness, guilt, penal desert, 
and remorse, so also it has a dynamic force, considered as acting 
on the physical order and sphere of nature ; in the contact and 
surrounding of which its transgressions take effect. In one view, 
it is the fall of virtue ; in the other, it is the disorder and penal 
dislocation both of the soul and of the world. As crime, it 
demolishes the sacred and supernatural interests of character ; 
as a force, operating through and among the retributive causes 
arranged for the vindication of God's law, it is the disruption of 
nature, a shock of disorder and pain that unsettles the apparent 
harmony of things, and reduces the world to a state of imperfect 
or questionable beauty. 

What I now propose, then, is the investigation of sin re- 
garded in the latter of these two aspects ; or to show what con- 
sequences it operates or provokes in the field of nature. 

It is not to be supposed that sin has power to annul or dis- 
continue any one of the laws of nature. The same laws are in 
action after the sin, or under it, as before. And yet, these laws 
continuing the same, it is conceivable that sin may effect what 
is really, and to no small extent, a new resolution or combina- 
tion, which is, to the ideally perfect state of nature, what dis- 
order is to order, deformity to beauty, pain to peace. This, of 
course, it will do, if at all, by a force exerted in the material 
world, and through the laws of nature. 

At the point of his will, man is a force, we have seen, outside 
of nature ; a being supernatural, because he is able to act on 



SIN PROVOKES RETRIBUTIVE CONSEQUENCES. Ill 

the chain of cause and effect in nature from without the chain. 
It follows then, of course, that by acting in this manner upon 
nature, he can vary the action of nature from what would be 
its action, were there no such thing as a force external to the 
scheme. Nature, indeed, is submitted to him, as we have seen, 
for this very purpose ; to be varied in its action by his action, 
to receive and return his action, so to be the field and medium 
of his exercise. 

Thus it is a favourite doctrine of our times, that the laws of 
the world are retributive ; so that every sin or departure from 
virtue will be faithfully and relentlessly punished. The very 
world, we say, is a moral economy, and is so arranged under its 
laws, that retribution follows at the heels of all sin. And by 
this fact of retribution, we mean that disease, pain, sorrow, de- 
formity, weakness, disappointment, defeat, all sorts of groanings, 
all sizes and shapes of misery, wait upon wrong-doers, and when 
challenged by their sin, come forth to handle them with their 
rugged and powerful discipline. We conceive that, in this way, 
the aspects of human society and the world are, to a consider- 
able degree, determined. But we do not always observe that 
nature is, by the supposition, just so far displayed under a vari- 
ation of disorder and disease. First appear the wrongs to be 
chastised, which are not included in the causations of nature, 
otherwise they were blameless : then the laws of nature, met 
by these provocations, commence a retributive action, such as 
nature unprovoked would never display. The sin has fallen 
into nature as a grain of sand into the eye ; and as the eye is 
the same organ that it was before, having the same laws, and 
is yet so far changed as to be an organ of pain rather than of 
sight, so it is with the laws of nature, in their penal and retri- 
butive action now begun. Sin, therefore, is, by the supposition, 
such a force as may suffice, in a society and world of sin, to 
vary the combinations and display a new resolution of the ac- 
tivities of nature. The laws remain, but they are met and pro- 
voked by a new ingredient not included in nature ; and so the 
whole field of nature, otherwise a realm of harmony, and peace, 
and beauty, takes a look of discord, and with many traces of its 
original glory left, displays the tokens also of a prison and an 
hospital. 

Thus far we have spoken of the power there is in sin to pro- 
voke a different action of natural causes. It also has a direct 



112 SIN PROVOKES RETRIBUTIVE CONSEQUENCES. 

action upon nature to produce other conjunctions of causes, and 
so other results. The laws all continue their action as before, 
but the sin committed varies the combinations subject to their 
action, and in that manner the order of their working. Indeed, 
we have seen that nature is, to a certain extent, submitted by 
her laws to the action of free supernatural agents ; which im- 
plies that her action can be varied by their sovereignty without 
displacing the laws, nay, in virtue rather of the submission they 
are appointed to enforce. I thrust my hand, for example, into 
the fire, producing thus a new conjunction of causes, viz., fire, 
and the tissues of the hand ; and the result corresponds — a 
state of suffering and partial disorganization. In doing this, I 
have acted only through the laws of nature — the nervous cord 
has carried down my mandate to the muscles of the arm, the 
muscles have contracted obediently to the mandate, the fire has 
done its part, the nerves of sensation have brought back their 
report, all in due order, but the result is a pain or loss of the 
injured member, as opposite to anything mere nature would 
have wrought by her own combinations as if it were the fruit of 
a miracle. So it is with all the crimes of violence, robbery, 
murder, assassination. The knife in the assassin's hand is a 
knife, doing what a knife should, by the laws which determine 
its properties. The heart of the victim is a heart beating on, 
subject to its laws, and, when it is pierced, driving out the 
blood from his opened side, as certainly as it before drove the 
living flood through the circulations of the body. But the 
thrust of the knife, which is from the assassin's will, makes a 
conjunction which nature by her laws alone would never make, 
and by force of this the victim dies. In like manner, a poison 
administered acts by its own laws in the body of the victim, 
which body also acts according to its laws, and the re- 
sult ensuing is death ; which death is attributable, not to the 
scheme of nature, but to a false conjunction of circumstances 
that was brought to pass wickedly by a human will. In all 
these cases, the results of pain, disorder, and death, are pro- 
perly said to be unnatural ; being, in a sense, violations of 
nature. The scheme of nature included no such results. They 
are disorders and dislocations made by the misconjunction or 
abuse of causes in the scheme of nature. And the same will 
be true of all the events that follow, in the vast complications 
and chains of causes, to the end of the world. Whatever mis- 



SIX PRODUCES NEW CONJUNCTIONS OF CAUSES. V.3 

chief or unnatural result is thus brought to pass by sin, will be 
the first link of an endless chain of results not included in the 
scheme of nature, and so the beginning of an ever-widening 
circle of disturbance. And this is the true account of evil. 

But it will occur to some, that all human activities, the 
good as well as the bad, are producing new conjunctions of 
causes that otherwise would not exist. Mere nature will never 
set a wheel to the waterfall, or adjust the substances that 
compose a house or a steamboat. How then does it appear 
that the results of sin are called dislocations or disorders, or 
regarded as unnatural, with any great propriety than the 
results of virtuous industry and all right action ? Because, 
we answer, the scheme of nature is adjusted for uses, not for 
abuses ; for improvement, culture, comfort, and advancing 
productiveness ; not for destruction or corruption. Therefore 
it consists with the scheme of nature that water-wheels, houses, 
and steamboats should be built ; for all the substances and 
powers of nature are given to be harnessed for service, and 
when they are, it is no dislocation, but only a fulfilling of the 
natural order. 

We come, also, to the same result by another and different 
process ; viz., by considering what sin is in its relation to God 
and His works. In its moral conception, it is an act against 
God, or the will and authority of God. And, since God is 
everywhere consistent with Himself, setting all His creations in 
harmony with His principles, it is of course an act against the 
physical order, as truly as against the moral and spiritual. 
Taken as a dynamic, therefore, it wars with the scheme of 
nature, and fills it with the turmoil of its disorders and per- 
versities. Or, if we take the concrete, speaking of the sinner 
himself, he is a substance, in a world of substances, acting as he 
was not made to act. He was not made to sin, and the world 
was not made to help him to sin. The mind of God being 
wholly against sin, the cast of every world and substance is 
repugnant to sin. The transgressor, therefore, is a free power 
acting against God morally, and physically against the cast of 
every world and substance of God — acting in or among the 
worlds and substances as he was not made to act. 

This, too, is the sentence of consciousness. The wrong-doer 
says within himself — "I was not made to act thus, no laws of 
cause and effect, acting through me, did the deed. I did it 

H 



114 SIN THE ACTING OF A SUBSTANCE. 

myself, therefore am I guilty. Had I been made for the sin, 
it had been no sin, but only a fulfilment 'of the ends included in 
my substance." And how terribly is this verdict certified by 
the discovery that the world refuses to bless him, and that all he 
does upon it is a work of deformity, shame, and disorder. The 
very substances of the world answer, as it were, in groans, to 
the violations of his guilty practice. 

Suppose, then, what all natural philosophers assume, that 
nature, considered as a realm of cause and effect, is a perfect 
system of order ; what must take place in that system, when 
some one substance, no matter what, begins to act as it was not 
made to act ? "What can follow, but some general disturbance 
of the ideal harmony of the system itself ? It will be as if some 
wheel or member in a watch had been touched by a magnet, and 
began to have an action thus not intended by the maker ; every 
other wheel and member will be affected by the vice of the one. 
Or it will be as if some planet or star, taking its own way, were 
to set itself on acting as it was not made to act ; instantly the 
shock of disorder is felt by every other member of the system. 
Or we may draw an illustration, closer to probability, from the 
vital forms of physiology. A vital creature is a kind of unit or 
little universe, fashioned by the life. Thus an egg is a complete 
vital system, having all its vessels, ducts, fluids, quantities, and 
qualities, arranged to meet the action of the embryonic germ. 
Suppose now, in the process of incubation, that some small 
speck, or point of matter, under the shell, should begin, as the 
germ quickens, to act as it was not made to act, or against the 
internal harmony of the process going on, what must be the 
result ? Either a disease, manifestly, that stops the process, or 
else a deformity ; a chick without a wing, or with one too many, 
or in some way imperfectly organized. What then must follow, 
when a whole order of substances called men, having an immense 
power over the lines of causes in the world, not only begin, but 
for thousands of years continue, and that on so large a scale 
that history itself is scarcely more than a record of the fact, to 
act as they were not made to act ? We have only to raise this 
question to see that the scheme of nature is marred, corrupted, 
dislocated by innumerable disturbances and disorders. Her laws 
all continue, but her conjunctions of causes are unnatural. Im- 
mense transformations are wrought, which represent, on a large 
scale, the repugnant, disorderly fact of sin. Indeed, what we 



CONSEQUENCES OF SIN IN SOULS. 115 

call nature must be rather a condition of immature ; apostolically 
represented, a whole creation groaning and travailing in pain 
together with man, in the disorder consequent on his sin. 

The conclusion at which we thus arrive is one that will be 
practically verified by inspection. Let us undertake, then, a 
brief survey of the great departments of human existence and 
the world, and discover, as far as we are able, the extent of the 
evil consequences wrought by sin. 

We begin with the soul or with souls. The soul, in its 
normal state, including the will or supernatural power, together 
with the involuntary powers subordinated to it by their laws, is 
an instrument tuned by the key-note of the conscience, viz., right, 
to sound harmoniously with it ; or it is a fluid, we may say, 
whose form, or law of crystallization is the conscience. And 
then it follows that, if the will breaks into revolt, the instru- 
ment is mistuned in every string, the fluid shaken becomes a 
shapeless, opaque mass, without unity or crystalline order. Or, 
if we resort to the analogies of vital phenomena, which are still 
closer, a revolted will is to the soul, or in it, what a foreign 
unreducible substance is in the vital and vascular system of the 
egg, or (to repeat an illustration) what a grain of sand is in 
the eye — the soul has become a weeping organ, not an organ 
simply of sight. Given the fact of sin, the fact of a fatal 
breach in the normal state, or constitutional order of the soul, 
follows of necessity. And exactly this we shall see, if we look 
in upon its secret chambers and watch the motions of sins in 
the confused ferment they raise — the perceptions discoloured, 
the judgments unable to hold their scales steadily because of 
the fierce gusts of passion, the thoughts huddling by in crowds 
of wild suggestions, the imagination haunted by ugly and dis- 
gustful shapes, the appetites contesting with reason, the senses 
victorious over faith, anger blowing the overheated fires of 
malice, low jealousies sulking in dark angles of the soul, and 
envies baser still hiding under the skim of its green-mantled 
pools — all the powers that should be strung in harmony 
loosened from each other, and brewing in hopeless and help- 
less confusion ; the conscience meantime thundering wrathfully 
above and shooting down hot bolts of judgment, and the pallid 
fears hurrying wildly about with their brimstone torches — 
these are the motions of sins, the Tartarian landscape of the 
soul and its disorders, when self-government is gone and the 



116 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

constituent integrity is dissolved. We cannot call it the 
natural state of man, nature disowns it. No one that looks in 
upon the ferment of its morbid, contesting, rasping, restive, 
uncontrollable action can imagine, for a moment, that he looks 
upon the sweet, primal order of life and nature. No name 
sufficiently describes it, unless we coin a name and call it a 
condition of unnature. 

Not that any law of the soul's nature is discontinued, or 
that any capacity which makes one a proper man is taken away 
by the bad inheritance, as appears to be the view of some 
theologians ; every function of thought and feeling remains, 
every mental law continues to run ; the disorder is that of 
functions abused and laws of operation provoked to a penal and 
retributive action, by the misdoings of an evil will. Though it 
is become, in this manner, a weeping organ, as we just now 
intimated, still it is an organ of sight ; only it sees through 
tears. And the profound reality of the disorder appears in the 
fact that the will by which it was wrought cannot, unassisted, 
repair it. To do this, in fact, is much the same kind of impos- 
sibility — the phrenologists will say precisely the same — as for 
a man who has disorganized his brain by over-exertion, or by 
steeping it in opium, or drenching it in alcohol, to take hold, by 
his will, of the millions of ducts and fibres woven together in 
the mysterious net- work of its substance, and bring them all back 
into the spontaneous order of health and spiritual integrity. 

No ! it is one thing to break or shatter an organization, and 
a very different to restore it. Almost any one can break an 
egg, but not all the chemists in the world can make one whole, 
or restore even so much as the slightest fracture of the shell. 
As little can a man will back, into order and tune, this fear- 
fully vast and delicate complication of faculties ; which indeed 
he cannot even conceive, except in the crudest manner, by the 
study of a life. 

It is important also, considering the moral reactions of the 
body, and especially the great fact of a propagation of the 
species, to notice the disorganizing effect of sin in the body. 
Body and soul, as long as they subsist in their organized state, 
are a strict unity. The abuses of one are abuses also of the 
other, the disturbances and diseases of one disturb and disease 
the other. The fortunes of the body must, in this way, follow 



IN THE BODY. 117 

the fortunes of the soul, whose organ it is. Sin has all its 
working too in the working of the brain. To think an evil 
thought, indulge a wicked purpose or passion, will, in this view, 
be much as if the sin had brought in a grain of sand and lodged 
it in the tissues of the brain. What then must be the effect, 
when every path in its curious net-work of intelligence is travel- 
led, year by year, by the insulting myriads of sinning thought, 
hardened by the tramp of their feet, and dusted by their 
smoky trail. 

But we are speaking theoretically. If we turn to practical 
evidences, or matters of fact, we shall see plainly enough that 
what should follow, in the effects of sin upon the body, actually 
does follow. How the vices of the appetites and passions 
terminate in diseases and a final disorganization of the body, is 
well understood. The false conjunction made by intemperate 
drink, deluging the tissues of the body with its liquid poisons, 
and reducing the body to a loathsome wreck, is not peculiar to 
that vice. The condition of sin is a condition of general intem- 
perance. It takes away the power of self-government, loosens 
the passions, and makes even the natural appetite for food an 
instigator of excess. Indeed, how many of the sufferings and 
infirmities even of persons called virtuous, are known by all 
intelligent physicians to be only the groaning of the body under 
loads habitually imposed, by the untempered and really diseased 
voracity of their appetites. And if we could trace all the secret 
actions of causes, how faithfully would the fevers, the rheuma- 
tisms, the neuralgic and hypochondriacal torments, all the grim 
looking woes of dyspepsia, be seen to follow the unregulated 
licence of this kind of sin. Nor is anything better understood 
than that whatever vice of the mind — wounded pride, unregu- 
lated ambition, hatred, covetousness, fear, inordinate care — 
throws the mind out of rest, throws the body out of rest also. 
Thus it is that sin, in all its forms, becomes a power of bodily 
disturbance, shattering the nerves, inflaming the tissues, dis- 
tempering the secretions, and brewing a general ferment of 
disease. In one view, the body is a kind of perpetual crystalli- 
zation, and the crystal of true health cannot form itself under 
sin, because the body has within a perpetual agitating cause 
which forbids the process. If then, looking round upon the 
great field of humanity, and noting the almost universal working 
of disease, in so many forms and varieties that they cannot be 



118 CONSEQUENCES OF SO 

named or counted, we sometimes exclaim with a sigh, what an 
hospital the world is ! we must be dull spectators, if we stop 
at this, and do not also connect the remembrance that sin is in 
the world ; a gangrene of the mind, poisoning ail the roots of 
health, and making visible its woes by so many woes of bodily 
disease and death. 

The particular question, whether bodily mortality has entered 
the world by sin, we will not discuss. That is principally a 
Scripture question, and the word of Scripture is not to be 
assumed in my argument. There obviously might have been a 
mode of translation to the second life, that should have none 
of the painful and revolting incidents which constitute the 
essential reality of death. We do moreover know that a very 
considerable share of the diseases and deaths of our race are the 
natural effects of sin or wrong-doing. There is great reason 
also to suspect, so devastating is the power of moral evil, that 
the infections and deadly plagues of the world are somehow 
generated by this cause. They seem to have their spring in 
some new virus of death, and this new virus must have been 
somewhere and somehow distilled or generated. We cannot 
refer them to mineral causes, or vegetable, or animal, which 
are nearly invariable, and they seem, as they begin their spread 
at some given locality, to have a humanly personal origin. 
That the virus of a poisonous and deadly contagion has been 
generated by human vices, we know as a familiar fact of 
history ; which makes it the more probable that other pesti- 
lential contagions have been generated in the deteriorated 
populations and sweltering vices of the East, whence our 
plagues are mostly derived. On this point we assert nothing 
as a truth positively discovered ; we only design, by these 
references, to suggest the possible (and to us probable) extent 
and power of that ferment, brewed by the instigations of sin, 
in the diseased populations of the world. What we suggest 
respecting the virus of the world's plagues may be true, or it 
may not ; this at least is shown beyond all question, that sin 
is a wide-spreading, dreadful power of bodily distemper and 
disorganization, which is the point of principal consequence to 
our argument. 

Passing now to society and the disorganizing effects of sin 
there to appear, we see at a glance that if the soul and body 



IN SOCIETY. 119 

are both distempered and reduced to a state of unnature, the 
great interest of society must suffer in a correspondent manner 
and degree. Considered as a growth or propagation, humanity is, 
in some very important sense, an organic whole. If the races 
are not all descended of a single pair, but of several or even 
many pairs, as is now strenuously asserted by some, both on 
grounds of science and of Scripture interpretation, still it makes 
no difference as regards the matter of their practical and pro- 
perly religious unity. The genus humanity is still a single 
genus comprehending the races, and we know from geology that 
they had a begun existence. That they also sinned at the be- 
ginning is as clear, from the considerations already advanced, 
as if they had been one. "Whence it follows that descendants 
of the sinning pair or pairs, born of natures thrown out of har- 
mony and corrupted by sin, could not, on principles of physiology 
apart from Scripture teachings, be unaffected by the distempers 
of their parentage. They must be constituently injured or 
depravated. It is not even supposable that organic natures, 
injured and disordered, as we have seen that human bodies are 
by sin, should propagate their life in a progeny unmarred and 
perfect. If we speak of sin as action, their children may be 
innocent, and so far may reveal the loveliness of innocence ; 
still the crystalline order is broken; the passions, tempers, 
appetites, are not in the proportions of harmony and reason ; 
the balance of original health is gone by anticipation ; and a 
distempered action is begun, whose affinities sort with evil 
rather than with good. It is as if by their own sin they had 
just so far distempered their organization. Thus far the fruit 
of sin is in them. And this the Scriptures, in a certain popu- 
lar, comprehensive way, sometimes call "sin;" because it is a 
condition of depravation that may well enough be taken as the 
root of a guilty, sinning life. Th*y do not undertake to settle 
metaphysically the point where personal guilt commences, but 
only suit their convenience in a comprehensive term that desig- 
nates the race as sinners ; passing by those speculative ques- 
tions that only divert attention from the salvation provided for a 
world of sinners. The doctrine of physiology, therefore, is the 
doctrine of original sin, and we are held to inevitable orthodoxy 
by it, even if the Scriptures are cast away. 

But if the laws of propagation contain the fact, in this manner, 
of an organic depravation of humanity or human society, under 



120 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

sin once broken loose, many will apprehend in such a fact some 
ground of impeachment against God, as if He had set us on our 
trial under terms of the sorest disadvantage. If we start, they 
ask, under conditions of hereditary damage, with natures depra- 
vated and affinities already distempered by the sin of progenitors, 
as truly as if we had commenced the bad life ourselves, what is 
our bad life when we begin it but the natural issue of our hope- 
less, misbegotten constitution ? It is no sufficient answer to 
say that no blame attaches to the mere depravation supposed, 
whether it be called sin or by any other name ; it shocks them 
to hear it even suggested that a good being like God can have 
set us forth in our trial under such immense disadvantages. 
Probably enough they assail the doctrine of inherited depravity 
in terms of fiery denunciation, whether taken as a dogma set up by 
theologians, or as being affirmed by Christian revelation itself ; 
not observing that it is the inevitable fact also of human history ; 
and, admitting the fact of sin, a necessary deduction even of 
physiological science. 

Now, so far from admitting the supposed disadvantage in- 
curred by this organic depravation of the race, or the mode 
of existence to which it pertains as a natural incident, we are 
led to an opinion exactly opposite. Indeed, there appears to be 
no other way possible, in which the race could have been set 
forth on their trial with as good chances of a successful and 
happy issue. 

Thus, taking it for granted that God is to create a moral 
population, or a population of free intelligences, that, having a 
begun existence, are to be educated into and finally established 
in good, there were obviously two methods possible. They 
might always be created outright in full volume, like so many 
Adams, only to exist independently and apart from all repro- 
ductive arrangements, or they might be introduced, as we are, 
in the frail and barely initiated existence of the infantile state, 
each generation born of the preceding, and altogether composing 
a rigidly constituent organic unity of races. 

In the former case they would have the advantage of a 
perfectly uncorrupted nature, and, if that be any advantage, of 
a full maturity in what may be called the raw staple of their 
functions. But such advantages amount to scarcely more than 
the opportunity of a greater and more tremendous peril ; for, 
being all, by supposition, under the same conditions privative 



IN SOCIETY. 121 

with the first man of Scripture, 1 they would as certainly do the 
same things, descending to the same bad experiment, to be in- 
volved in the came consequent fall and disorder. They would 
only be more strictly original in their depravation, having it as 
the fruit of their own guilty choices. 

And then, as regards all mitigating and restoring influences, 
the comparative disadvantage would be immense. Self-centred 
now, every man in his sin, and having no ligatures of race and 
family and family affection to bind them together, the selfish- 
ness of their fall would be unqualified, softened by no mitiga- 
tions. Spiritual love they cannot understand, because they 
never have felt the natural love of sex. family, and kindred, by 
which under conditions of propagation, a kind of inevitable 
first-stage virtue is instituted ; such as mitigates the severities 
of sin, softens the sentiments to a social, tender play, and offers 
to the mind a type, everywhere present, of the beauty and true 
joy of a disinterested spiritual benevolence. They compose 
instead a burly prison-gang of probationers, linked together by 
no ties of consanguinity, reflecting no traces of family likeness, 
bent to each other's and God's love by no dear memories. 
Society there is none. Law is impossible. Society and law 
suppose conditions of organic unity already prepared. Every 
man for himself, is the grand maxim of life ; for all are atoms 
together in the medley of the common selfishness ; only the 
old atoms have an immense advantage over the young ones 
fresh arrived ; for these new-comers of probation come, of 
course, to the prey, having no guardians or protectors, and no 
tender sentiments of care and kindred prepared to shelter them 
and smooth their way. Besides, the world into which they 
come must have been already fouled and disordered by the sin 
of the prior populations, and must therefore be a frame of being 
wholly inappropriate to their new- created innocence ; or else 
if not thus disordered, must have been a casement of iron, too 
rigid and impassive to receive any injury from sin, and therefore 
incapable of any retributive discipline returned upon it. There 
is, in short, no condition of trial which, after all, is seen to be 
so utterly forbidding and hopeless as just this state of Adamic 
innocence, independence, and maturity of faculty, which many 
are so ready to require of God, as the only method of promise 
and fair advantage in the beginning of a responsible life. 

1 Chapter iv. p. 71. 



122 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

How different the condition realized where men are propa- 
gated as a race or races ! Then are they linked together by a 
necessary, constituent, anticipative love. Moved by this love, 
the progenitors are immediately set to a work of care and bene- 
faction beautifully opposite to the proper selfishness of their 
sin. The delicate and tender being received to their embrace 
circulates their blood, will bear their name, and is looked upon, 
even by their selfishness, as a multiplied and dearer self. They 
are even made to feel, in a lower and more rudimental way, 
what joy there is in a disinterested love ; and they pour out 
their fondness in ways that even try their invention, instigated 
by the compulsory bliss of sacrifice. They want the best things 
too for their child, even his virtue ; and probably enough his 
religious virtue ; for they dread the bitter woes of wrong-doing. 
This is true, at least, of all but such as have fallen below 
nature in their vices, and ceased to hear her voice t They even 
undertake to be a providence, and do for their child all which 
the love of God, even till now rejected, has been seeking to do 
for themselves, commanding him away from wrong, and warn- 
ing him faithfully of its dangers. Besides, it is a great point 
in the scheme of propagated life, that the child learns how to 
be grown, so to speak, into, and exist in, another will ; which is 
an immense advantage to the religious nurture, even where the 
parental character is not good. He is not like a population of 
untutored, unregulated Adams, who have just come to the finding 
of a man's will in them, and do not know how to use it, least of 
all how to sink it obediently in the sovereign will and authority 
of God. The child's will grew in authority, and he comes out 
gently, in the reverence of a subordinated habit, to choose the 
way of obedience, having his religious conscience configured and 
trained by a kind of family conscience previously developed. 
There is almost no family, therefore, — none except the very 
worst and most depraved, — in which the rule of the house is not 
a great spiritual benefit, and a means even of religious virtue. 
How much more, where the odour of a heavenly piety fills the 
house and sanctifies the atmosphere of life itself V Instead of 
being set forth as an overgrown man, issued from the Creator's 
hand to make the tremendous choice, undirected by experience, 
he is gently inducted, as it were, by choices of parents before 
his own, into the habit and accepted practice of all holy obedi- 
ence ; growing up in the nurture of their grace, as truly as of 



IN SOCIETY. 123 

their natural affection. Furthermore, as corruption or deprava- 
tion is propagated under well-known laws of physiology, what 
are we to think but that a regenerate life may be also propa- 
gated, and that so the Scripture truth of a sanctification from 
the womb may some time cease to be a thing remarkable and 
become a commonly expected fact ? And then, if a point 
should finally be reached, under the sublime palingennesia of 
redemption, when Christian faith, together with its fruits of 
nurture and sanctified propagation, should be nearly or quite 
universal, and the world, which is now in its infancy, should 
roll on millions of ages after, training its immense populations 
for the skies, how magnificently preponderant the advantages of 
the plan of propagation, which at first we thought could be 
only a plan to set us out in the wrong, and sacrifice our virtue 
by anticipation ! 

This comparison, which might otherwise seem to be a digres- 
sion, will effectually remove those false impressions so generally 
prevalent concerning God's equity in the fact of natural corrup- 
tion; and if this be done, a chief impediment to all right 
conceptions of the human state, as affected by sin, will be re- 
moved. In this manner, wholly apart from the Scriptures, 
instructed only by the laws of physiology, we discover the 
certain truth of an organic fall or social lapse in the race ; we 
find humanity broken, disordered, plunged into unnature by 
sin ; but dark and fearful as the state may be, there is nothing 
in it unhopeful, nothing to accuse. We are only where we 
should be, each by his own act, if we were created indepen- 
dently, with immense advantages added to mitigate the hope- 
lessness of our disorder. 

It is very true that, under these physiological terms of pro- 
pagation, society falls or goes down as a unit, and evil becomes 
in a sense organic in the earth. The bad inheritance passes, 
and fears, frauds, crimes against property, character, and life, 
abuses of power, oppressions of the weak, persecutions of the 
good, piracies, wars of revolt, and wars of conquest, are the 
staple of the world's bitter history. All that Mr Fourier has 
said of society, in its practical operation, is true ; it is a pitiless 
and dreadful power, as fallen society should be. And yet it is 
' a condition of existence far less dreadful than it would be, if the 
organic force of natural affinities and affections were not opera- 
tive still, in the desolations of evil, to produce institutions, 



124 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

construct nations, 1 and establish a condition of qualified unity 
and protection. Otherwise, or existing only as separate units, 
in no terms of consanguinity, we should probably fall into a 
state of utter non-organization, or, what is the same, of univer- 
sal prey. The grand woe of society, therefore, is not, as this 
new prophet of science teaches, the bad organization of society ; 
but that good organization, originally beautiful and beneficent, 
can only mitigate, but cannot shut away, the evils by which 
it is infested. The line of propagation is, in one view, the line 
of transmission by which evil passes ; but it is, at the same 
time, a sure spring of solidarity and organific power, by which 
all the principal checks and mitigations of evil, save those 
which are brought in with the grace of supernatural redemption, 
are supplied. Otherwise the state of evil, untransmitted and 
purely original in all, would make a hell of anarchy, unendur- 
able and final. 

Nothing, in this view, could be more superficial than Mr 
Fourier's conception of the woes of society. Ignoring at the 
outset the existence of sin, and assuming that every man comes 
from the hand of his Maker in a state that represents the 
Maker's integrity, even as the stars do, he lays it down as a 
fundamental maxim of science, that all the passions and appe- 
tites of the race are, like gravity itself, instincts that reach after 
order — in his own rather pretentious and extra scientific language, 
that "attractions are proportioned to destinies." The attrac- 
tions of the worlds of matter adjust their positions ; so the perfect 
order of the heavens. So the attractions of men, to wit, their 
lusts, appetites, passions, will adjust the perfect order of society. 
Why, then, do they not ? Because of social mal- organization. 
And, with so many impulses or passions gravitating all toward 
order, whence came the mal-organization ? — why are not the 
heavens, too, mal- organized, and with as good right ? But I 
refer to these insane theories of social science, not for any 
purpose of argument against them, but simply to get light and 
shade for my subject. The woe of society is deeper and more 
difficult ; not to be mended by artificial reconstructions apart 
from all ties of consanguinity, not by contracts of good will and 
mutual service, not by bonds of interest and licenses of passion. 
It lies, first of all, in the fall of man himself, which includes the 

1 The word itself represents upon its face the common life of a common root or 
parentage. 



IX SOCIETY. 125 

fall of passion ; a fall which is mitigated even compulsorily by 
the organifio power of consanguinity, but can, by no human 
wisdom, or skill, or combination, be restored. Organization 
will do what it can, it will be more or less bad as it is more or 
less perverted by injustice, or misdirected and baffled by the 
instigations of selfishness and the bad affinities and demonized 
passions of sin. 

It now remains to carry our inquest one step farther. If sin 
has power, taken as a dynamic, to affect the soul, the body, and 
society, in the manner already indicated, reducing all these 
departments of nature to a state unnatural, it should not be 
incredible that it may also have power to produce a like disorder 
in the material or physical world. The immense power of the 
human will over the physical substances of the world and the 
conjunctions of- its causes, is seldom adequately conceived. 
Almost everything, up to the moon, is capable of being somehow 
varied or affected by it. Being a force supernatural, it is con- 
tinually playing itself into the chemistries and external com- 
binations of matter, converting shapes, reducing or increasing 
quantities, transferring positions, framing and dismembering 
conjunctions, turning poisons into medicines, and reducing 
fruits to poisons, till at length scarcely anything is left in its 
properly natural state. Some of these changes, which it is the 
toil of human life to produce, are beneficent ; and a multitude of 
others represent, alas ! too faithfully, the prime distinction of 
sin ; the acting of a power against God, or as it was not made to 
act. Could we only bring together into a complete inventory all 
the new structures, compositions, inventions, shapes, qualities, 
already produced by man, which are, in fact, the furniture only 
of his sin — means of self-indulgence, instruments of violence, 
shows of pride, instigations of appetite, incitements and institutes 
of corrupt pleasure — all the leprosies and leper-houses of vice, 
the prisons of oppression, the hospitals and battle-fields of war, 
we should see a face put on the world which God never gave it, 
and which only represents the bad conversion it has suffered, 
under the immense and ever-industrious perversities of sin. 

But we must carry our search to a point that is deeper and 
more significant. In what is called nature, we find a large 
admixture of signs or objects, which certainly do not belong to 
an ideal state of beauty, and do not, therefore, represent the 



126 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

mind of God, whence they are supposed to come. The fact is 
patent everywhere, and yet the superficial and hasty multitudes 
appear to take it for granted, that all the creations of God are 
beautiful of course. They either assume it as a necessary point 
of reverence, or deduce it as a point of reason, that whatever 
comes from God represents the thought of God ; being cast in 
the mould of His thought, which is divine beauty itself. Not 
only do the poets and poetasters in prose go the round of 
nature, sentimentalizing among her dews and flowers, and pay- 
ing their worship at her shrine, as if the world were a gospel 
even of beauty ; but our philosophers often teach it as a first 
principle, and our natural theologians assume it also in their 
arguments, that the forms of things must represent the perfect 
forms of the Divine thought, by which they were fashioned. 
It would seem that such a conceit might be dissipated by a 
single glance of revision ; for God is the infinite beauty, and 
who can imagine, looking on this or that half dry and prosy 
scene of nature, that it represents the infinite beauty ? The 
fact of creation argues no such thing. For what if it should 
happen to have been a part of God's design in the work to 
represent, not Himself only as the Pure and Perfect One, the 
immutable throne of law and universal order, but quite as truly, 
and in immediate proximity, to represent man to himself ; that 
he may see both what he is for, and what he is, and struggle 
up out of one into the other. Then, or in that view, it would 
be the perfection of the world, taken in its moral adaptations, 
that it is not perfect, and does not answer to the beauty of the 
creative mind, save under the large qualification specified. 

And exactly this appears to be the true conception of the 
physical world. What does it mean, for example, that the 
vital organizations are continually seen to be attempting pro- 
ducts which they cannot finish ? Thus a fruit tree covers 
itself with an immense profusion of blossoms, that drop and 
do not set in fruit. And then, of those fruits which are set, 
an immense number fall, strewing the ground with deaths — 
tokens all of an abortive attempt in nature, if we call it nature, 
to execute more than she can finish. And this we see in all 
the growths of the world — they lay out more than they can 
perform. Is this the ideal perfection of nature, or is there 
some touch of unnature and disorder in it ? Is God, the 
Creator, represented in this ? Does He put Himself before us 



IN THE NATURAL WORLD. 127 

in this manner, as a being who attempts more fruits than He 
can produce ? or is there a hint in it, for man, of what may 
come to pass in himself ? an image under which he may con- 
ceive himself and fitly represent himself in language ? a token, 
also, and proof of that most real abortion, to which he may 
bring even his immortal nature, despite of all the saving mercies 
of God ? 

Swedenborg and his followers have a way of representing, I 
believe, that God creates the world through man, by which 
they understand that what we call the creation is a purely 
gerundive matter — God's perpetual act — and that he holds the 
work to man, at every stage, so as to represent him always at 
his present point, and act upon him fitly to his present taste. 
Not far off is Jonathan Edwards' conception of God's upholding 
of the universe— -it is, in fact, a perpetual reproduction ; the 
creation, so called, being to His person what the image in a 
mirror is to the person before it, from whom it proceeds and 
by whom it is sustained. Indeed this latter conception runs 
into the other, and becomes identical with it, as soon as we 
take in the fact that God is always being and becoming to man, 
both in counsel and feeling, what is most exactly fit to man's 
character and want ; for, in that view God's image, otherwise 
called His creation, will be all the while receiving a colour 
from man, and will so far be configured to him. Accordingly, 
we look, in either view, to see the Kosmos or outward frame of 
things held to man, linked to his fortunes to rise and fall with 
him, and so, under certain limitations, to give him back his 
doings and represent him to himself — representing God, in fact, 
the more adequately that it does. 

The doctrine of types in the physical world, to represent con- 
ditions of character and changes of fortune in the spiritual, is 
only another conception of the same general truth. And this 
doctrine of types we know to be true in part ; for language itself 
is possible only in virtue of the fact that physical types are pro- 
vided, as bases of words, having each a natural fitness to repre- 
sent some spiritual truth of human life ; which is, in fact, the 
principal use and significance of language. Whence also it 
follows that if human life is disordered, perverted, reduced to 
a condition of unnature by sin, there must also be provided, as 
the necessary condition of language, types that represent so 
great a change ; which is equivalent to saying that the fortunes 



128 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

of the outer world must, to some very great extent, follow the 
fortunes of the occupant and groan with him in his disorders. 

Or we are brought to a conclusion essentially the same, by 
considering the complete and perfect unity of natural causes ; 
how they form a dynamic whole, resting in an exact balance of 
mutual relationship, so that if any world or particle starts from 
its orbit or position, every other world and particle feels the 
change. What then must follow when the given force or sub- 
stance man begins, and for long ages continues, to act as he 
was not made to act ; out of character, against God, refusing 
place, and breaking out on every side from the general scheme 
of unity and harmony, in which the creation was to be com- 
prehended ? What can his human disorder be, but a propa- 
gating cause of disorder ? what his deformity within, but a 
soul of deformity without, in the surroundings of the field he 
occupies ? 

And this again is but another version of the fact that the 
final causes of things are moral ; the arrangement being that 
natural causes shall react upon all wrong-doing, in retributive 
diseases, discords, and pains, to correct and chasten the wrong; 
which, indeed, is the same thing as to say that the world was 
made to share the fortunes of man, and fall with him in his 
fall. 

Whichever of these views we take, for at bottom they all 
coalesce in the same conclusion, we see at a glance, that given 
the fact of sin, what we call nature can be no mere embodi- 
ment of God's beauty and the eternal order of His mind, but 
must be, to some wide extent, a realm of deformity and abor- 
tion ; groaning with the discords of sin, and keeping company 
with it in the guilty pains of its apostasy. Even as the apostle 
says — meaning doubtless all which his words most naturally 
signify — " For the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in 
pain together." 

We need not therefore scruple to allow and also to maintain 
the judgment, that many things we meet are not beautiful ; 
we should rather look for many that are not. Thus we have 
growths in the briars and thorns that do not represent the 
beauty and benignity of God ; but under His appointment take 
on their spiny ferocity from man, whose surroundings they are, 
and whose fortunes they are made to participate. The same 
may be said of loathsome and disgusting animals. Or we may 



IN THE NATURAL WORLD. 129 

take the pismire race for an example — a race of military vermin, 
who fight pitched battles, and sometimes make slaves of their 
captives ; representing nothing surely in God, save his purpose 
to reflect, in keenest mockery, the warlike chivalry and glory of 
man. It was our fortune once to see a battle of these insect 
heroes. On a square rod of ground it raged for two whole days, 
a braver field than Marathon or Waterloo, covered with the dead 
and dying, and with fierce enemies rolled in the dust, still fight- 
ing on in a deadly grapple of halves, after the slender connexion 
of their middle part had been completely severed in the en- 
counter. That these creatures image God in their fight cannot 
be supposed, save as God may reveal, by a figure so powerful, 
the sense He has of what we call our glory, the bloody glory of 
our sin. 

Under the same principle that the world is linked to man 
and required to represent him to himself, we are probably to 
account for the many and wide -spread tokens of deformity round 
us in the visible objects of nature. Whoever may once set his 
thought to this kind of inquiry, will be amazed by the constant 
recurrence of deformities or things which lack the beauties of 
form. After all the fine sentimentalities, lavished by rote and 
without discriminating thought on the works and processes of 
nature, he will be surprised to find that the world is not as 
truly a realm of beauty, as of beauty flecked by injury. The 
growths are carbuncled and diseased, and . the children have it 
for a play to fetch a perfect leaf. Fogs and storms blur the 
glory of the sky, and foul days, rightly so called, interspace 
the bright and fair. The earth itself displays vast deserts 
swept by the horrid simoom ; muddy rivers, with their fenny 
shores, tenanted by hideous alligators ; swamps and morasses, 
spreading out in provinces of quagmire, and reeking in the 
steam of death. In the kingdom of life, disgusting and 
loathsome objects appear, too numerous to be recounted ; such 
as worms and the myriads of base vermin, deformed animals, 
dwarfs, idiots, leprosies, and the rot of cities swept by the 
plague ; history itself depicting the mushrooms sprouting in 
the bodies of the unburied dead, and the jackals howling in the 
chambers at their dreadful repast. Even more significant still 
is the fact, because it is a fact that concerns the honour even 
of our personal organism, that no living man or woman is ever 
found to be a faultless model of beautv and proportion. When 

i 



130 CONSEQUENCES OF SIN IN THE NATURAL WORLD. 

the sculptor will fashion a perfect form, he is obliged to glean 
for it, picking out the several parts of beauty from a hundred 
mal-proportioned, blemished bodies in actual life. And what 
is yet more striking, full three-fourths of the living races of 
men are so ugly, or so far divested of beauty in their mould, 
that no sculptor would ever think of drawing on them for a 
single feature ! 

This word deformity, which is properly a word of sight, may 
be used too in its largest and most inclusive import, to cover 
all the ground of the senses, together with a whole family of 
words in de or dis, that indicate a relation of disjunction — the 
dis-gusts of the taste and the smell ; the dis-easement or pain 
of the sensibility ; the dis-cords and the unmelodious notes that 
storm the offended ear of music ; the manifold braying, cawing, 
screeching, yelling sounds, such as would be low in a farce, 
but are issued still from as many badly-voiced pipes in the great 
organ of nature. And then, besides, we have dis-tempers, dis- 
proportions, dis-tortions, dis-orders, de-rangements, answering 
all, shall we say, to the dis-location of our inward harmony, 
and revealing in that manner the desolating effects of our sin. 

If it should be urged that all these deformities and discords 
are necessary contrasts, to enliven the beauty and heighten the 
music of nature, it is enough to answer that pain is as necessary 
to joy, eternal pain to eternal joy ; or better still, because the 
analogy is closer and more exact, that moral deformity is just 
as necessary in God to the sufficient impression of His moral 
beauty. Though, if we take them altogether in their moral 
import and uses — the abortions, the deformed growths and 
landscapes, and the strange jargon of sounds — regarding them 
as prepared by the Almighty Father, fitly to insphere a crea- 
ture supernatural whom He is correcting in his sins and training 
unto Himself, then do they rise into real dignity and reveal a 
truly divine magnificence. This, we say, is indeed the tre- 
mendous beauty of God ; and the strange, wild jargon of the 
world, shattered thus by sin, becomes to us a mysterious, 
transcendent hymn. Still it is deformity, jargon, death, and 
the only winning side of it is, that it answers to the woe, and 
meets the want of our sin. 



AHTICIPAT1VE CONSEQUENCES 131 



CHAPTER VII. 

ANTICIPATIVE CONSEQUENCES. 

In the account offered of the consequences of sin, we have 
spoken of these consequences as effects transpiring under laws, 
and so as matters post in respect to the fact of sin. The result 
stated coincides, in all but the positive or inflictive form, with 
the original curse denounced on man's apostasy, as represented 
in the Adamic history or sin-myth, as some would call it, of the 
ancient Scriptures. That primal curse, it is conceived, pene- 
trates the very ground as a doom of sterility, covers it with 
thorns and thistles and all manner of weeds to be subdued by 
labour, makes it weariness to live, brings in death with its 
armies of pains and terrors to hunt us out of life, and so un- 
paradises the world. Call it then a myth, disallow the notion 
of a positive infliction as being unphilosophical ; still the 
matter of the change, or general world-lapse asserted in it, is 
one of the grandest, most massive, best-attested truths included 
in human knowledge. It is just that which ought to be true 
under the conditions, and which we have found, by inspection 
also, to be true as a matter of fact. 

Still there is a difficulty, or a great and hitherto insufficiently 
explored question, that remains. It is the question of date or 
time ; for when we speak, as in the previous chapter, of the 
consequences of sin, we seem to imply that, upon or after the 
fact of sin, the physical order of the world, affected by the 
shock, underwent a great change that amounted to a fall; 
becoming, from that point onward, a realm of deformity and 
discord, as before it was not, and displaying, in all its sceneries 
ana combinations, the tokens of a broken constitution. All 
which, it will readily occur to any one, cannot in that form 



132 TWO KINDS OF CONSEQUENCES. 

be true. For the sturdy facts of science rise up to confront us 
in such representations, testifying that death, and prey, and 
deformed objects, and hideous monsters, were in the world long 
before the arrival of man. Nay, the rocks open their tombs and 
show us that older curses than the curse, older consequences 
ante- dating sin, had already set their marks on the world, and 
had even made it, more than once, an Aceldama of the living 
races. 

"I need scarce say," remarks Hugh Miller, "that the palae- 
ontologist finds no trace in nature of that golden age of the 
world, of which the poets delighted to sing, when all creatures 
lived together in unbroken peace, and war and bloodshed were 
unknown. Ever since animal life began upon our planet, there 
have existed, in all the departments of being, carnivorous classes, 
who could not live but by the death of their neighbours, and who 
were armed in consequence for their destruction, like the 
butcher with his knife, and the angler with his hook and 
spear." 1 This being true, the paradisiac history, as commonly 
understood, is still farther off from a possible verification, un- 
less we suppose the curse to be there reported as a fact subse- 
quent, though latently incorporate before, because it is there 
discovered, and plainly could not be conceived, at that time, as 
the facts of future science may require. 

For the true solution of this apparent collision between 
geologic revelations and the paradisiac history lies in the fact, 
which many have not considered, that there are two modes of 
consequence, or two kinds of consequences ; those which come 
as effects under physical causes, and have their time as events 
subsequent ; and those which come anticipatively, or before the 
facts whose consequences they are, because of intellectual 
conditions, or because intelligence, affected by such facts, apjDre- 
hended before the time, could not act as being ignorant of them. 
These two modes of consequence, and particularly the latter, 
now demand our attention. 

As regards the former — the consequences of suffering and 
dislocation that follow sin, as effects in time subsequent — there 
is happily not much requiring to be said ; for the truth on that 
subject is familiar, and is in fact overmuch insisted on by the 
modern teachers. Only it happens that, while they so frequently 

1 Testimony of the Rocks, p. 99. 



WHAT EVIL CONSEQUENCES FOLLOW IN TIME. 133 

make a gospel of the mere retributive principle thus arrayed 
against evil, they do also contrive to narrow the bad consequences 
of sin to a range so restricted, and to results of mischief so 
nearly trivial, that really nothing is involved in disobedience, 
except in cases of extreme viciousness and moral abandonment. 
They do not conceive such a thing as the real dissolution of the 
primal order and harmony even of the soul, and the ceasing to 
be any longer a complete integer, when it drops its moral in- 
tegrity. What I have so abundantly shown in the previous 
chapter, they do not allow themselves to see, that any beginning 
or outbreak of sin carries with it the inevitable fact of a shock 
to the general state of order ; starting trains of penal and re- 
tributive consequences, which have no assignable limit, and 
which none but a supernatural and divine agency can reverse. 
Anything entering into God's world, or falling out in it, that is 
against His will, breaks of course the crystalline order, and how 
far the fracture will go no one can tell. 

When, therefore, we meet any given token of lapse or dis- 
order, it may not be clear to us on mere inspection how it 
came in, whether among the subsequent or the anticipative 
consequences of sin. Thorns and thistles — did they take on 
their spiny and savage armour before the sin of man, or after ? 
Possibly after. No man can tell beforehand how far such a 
beginning of disobedience and apostasy from God might pene- 
trate the fabric, and poison the substance, and so determine 
the form of growths in the world ; for, in a scheme of perfect 
reason, any violation of wrong travels fast and far, and no one 
can guess how far. But if the geologist, opening the hidden 
registers of the world, finds the portrait, or even the indis- 
putable analogon of a thistle in the stone, that is the end of 
the inquiry. 

The substance then of what I would desire to say on this 
particular point is, that without some conviction of evil and pain 
following after sin, as its necessary effect, there could be no such 
thing as a practically real moral government in the world. That 
such evil and pain do follow, with inevitable certainty, even as 
all effects follow after their causes, we perceive and almost uni- 
versally admit; for they are distinguishable in all the four great 
departments of being — the body, the soul, society, and the world. 
And since it is theoretically true that, in any perfect system of 
being, the disturbance of a particle disturbs the whole, we are to 



134 PRE-EXISTING EVILS, HOW FAR 

admit, without difficulty, and as it were by intellectual require- 
ment, that evils most remote, deepest, widest, and most com- 
prehensive, may be effects or inevitable sequents of human 
transgression. On this point our faith should properly be 
shocked by nothing ; for it is a fact visible beforehand, all time 
apart, that sin must be a grand, all-penetrating sacrament of woe 
to the world that contains it. And we shall most naturally take 
all the evils we meet to be the dynamical effects of sin, till we 
find them penetrating also the pre-Adamite conditions of being, 
and setting their type in the registers of the geologic ages. 

We come now to the matter of the anticipative consequences, 
where it will be required of us to speak more carefully and to 
dwell longer. 

And here the first thing to be noted, as respects the conse- 
quences of sin in our particular world, is, that the subsequent 
effects of the sin of other beings might very well bring in dis- 
orders here that anticipate the arrival of man. There had 
been other moral beings in existence doubtless before the crea- 
tion of man. So, in fact, the Scriptures themselves testify. 
They also testify that some such were evil, and, as we are left 
to judge, fixed in a reprobate character by long courses of evil. 
As they are shown to have had access to our world, after we 
came in as a race to possess it, so doubtless they had been 
visitors and travellers in it, if we may so speak, during all the 
long geologic eras that preceded our coming — hovering, it may 
be, in the smoke and steam, or watching for congenial sounds 
and sights among the crashing masses and grinding layers, even 
before the huge monsters began to wallow in the ooze of the 
waters, or the giant birds to stalk along the hardening shores. 
What they did, in this or that geologic layer of the world, we of 
course know not. As little do we know in what numbers they 
appeared, or by what deeds of violence and wrong they disfigured 
the existing order. We do not even know that the successive 
extinctions of so many animal races, and the deformities found 
in so many of the now existing races, were not somehow refer- 
rible to the audacity of their wrongs and the bitter woe of 
their iniquities. As already intimated, 1 the fencing of spirits 
may be an essentially moral affair — such that having, by their 
very nature, the freedom originally of the physical universe, the 

1 Chapter iv. pp. 80-84. 



REFERRIBLE TO OLDER POPULATIONS. 135 

universe might well be visited by all such myrmidons of evil, 
and being so visited, might show, as a necessary consequence, 
the tokens of their evil contact or inhabitation. Indeed it 
might well enough show such tokens of their sin in worlds 
they had never visited ; for the universe, as we have seen, is a 
whole, and a shock to any part of that whole must have its 
effects of some kind in every other. How far the solidarity of 
the universe and its fortunes extends, or how many things it 
embraces, we certainly do not know, and are therefore not 
qualified to assume that " the whole creation" does not neces- 
sarily feel the touch of every bad mind and act, and suffer some 
consequent disorder in every part. Finding then tokens of 
deformity and prey, and objects of disgust appearing in the 
world, long ages before it was inhabited by man, we are not 
hastily to infer that these are not actual consequences of sin. 
They may be such, in the strictest terms of retributive causality, 
though not as related to the sins of man. Preceding that, by 
long ages of time, they may yet be subsequent and penal 
effects, as related to older, vaster, outlying populations of 
sinners that had visited, or sent the shock of their sin into the 
world, before the human race appeared. 

It is not proposed, however, to account for all the previously 
existing marks of evil in the world in this manner. It is most 
agreeable not to do it. For we shall easily convince ourselves 
that vast realms of consequences, and these as real as any, pre- 
cede, and, in rational order, ought to precede their grounds or 
occasions. Indeed, it is the peculiar distinction of consequences 
mediated by intelligence that they generally go before, and pre- 
pare the coming of events to which they relate. Whoever 
plants a state erects a prison, or makes the prison to be a 
necessary part of his plan ; which prison, though it be erected 
before any case of felony occurs, is just as truly a consequence 
of the felonies to be as if it were erected afterward, or were a 
natural result of such felonies. All the machinery of disci- 
pline in a school or an army is prepared by intelligence, per- 
ceiving beforehand the certain want of discipline hereafter to 
appear, and is just as truly a consequence of the want as if it 
were created by the want itself, without any mediation of in- 
telligence. 

So also any commander, who is managing a campaign and 
has gotten hold of the intended plan of his enemy, will be 



136 CONSEQUENCES PREVIOUS 

utterly unable to project a plan for himself, or even to order 
the manoeuvres of a day, so as not to show a looking at the 
secret he has gained, and also to prepare innumerable things 
that are, in some sense, consequences of it. What then shall 
we look for, since God's whole plan of government is, in some 
highest view, a campaign against sin, and is from the beginning 
projected as such, but that all the turnings of His councils and 
shapings of his creations should have some discoverable refer- 
ence to it ? And how, in that case, could they be more truly 
and rigidly consequences of it ? Indeed, all consequences post, 
are, in fact, anticipative first, and are as really existent, in 
the laws ordained by intelligence to bring them to pass, as they 
are in their actual occurrence in time afterward. It is by no 
fiction therefore, and as little by any fetch of ingenuity, that 
we speak of anticipative consequences ; for they are the unfail- 
ing distinction of every plan ordered by intelligence ; every 
system or scheme comprehended in the moulds of reason will 
disclose, in the remotest and most subtle beginnings, marks 
that relate to events future, and even to issues most remote. 

This, too, so far from being any subject of wonder, is even 
a kind of necessary incident of intelligence. For everything 
that comes into the view of intelligence must also pass into the 
plans of intelligence. How can any intelligent being frame a 
plan so as to make no account of what is really in his know- 
ledge ? Or how could the all -knowing God arrange a scheme 
of providential order, just as if He did not know the coming fact 
of sin, eternally present to His knowledge ? Mind works under 
conditions of unity, and, above all, Perfect Mind. What God 
has eternally in view, therefore, as the certain fact of sin, that 
fact about which all highest counsel in His government must 
revolve, and upon the due management of which all most event- 
ful and beneficent issues in His kingdom depend, must pervade 
His most ancient beginnings, and crop out in all the layers and 
eras of His process, from the first chapter of creative movement, 
onward. As certainly as sin is to be encountered in His plan, 
its marks and consequences will be appearing anticipatively, and 
all the grand arrangements and cycles of time will be somehow 
preluding its approach, and the dire encounter to be maintained 
with it. To create and govern a world, through long eras of 
time, and great physical revulsions, yet never discover to our 
view any token that He apprehends the grand cataclysm of sin 



MEDIATED BY INTELLIGENCE. 137 

that is approaching, till after the fact is come, He must be much 
less than a wise, all-perceiving Mind. Much room would be left 
for the doubt, whether He is any mind at all ; for it is the way 
of mind to weave all counsel and order into a web of visible unity. 

It accords also with this general view of the subject, as related 
to mind, that our most qualified teachers in science discover so 
many tokens of premeditation, or anticipative thought, in the 
earlier types and creations of the world. ' ' Premeditation prior 
to creation" 1 — this is the grand, intellectual fact which Mr 
Agassiz verifies with a confidence so calmly scientific, in his late 
introduction to the study of Natural History. All sciences, he 
shows, are in things, because the Creator's premeditative thought 
is there ; every first thing accordingly shows some premeditative 
token of every last. " Enough has been already said," he re- 
marks, " to show that the leading thought which runs through 
the successions of all organized beings in past ages is manifested 
again in new combinations, in the phases of the development of 
living representatives of these different types. It exhibits every- 
where the working of the same creative Mind, through all time, 
and upon the whole surface of the globe." 2 He passes directly 
on, accordingly, in his next section, to speak of the " Prophetic 
Types among Animals," discovering, in the earlier types of 
animated being, what reads " like a prophecy " of all the types 
to come after. " There are entire families," he says, " among 
the representatives of older periods, of nearly every class of 
animals, which, in the state of their perfect development, exem- 
plify such prophetic relations, and afford, within the limits of the 
animal kingdom, at least, the most unexpected evidence that the 
plan of the whole creation had been maturely considered long- 
before it was executed." 3 All this, it will be observed, by the 
mere dry light of reason and of positive science, apart from any 
consideration of a service to be rendered to revealed religion. 

Professor Dana, in like manner, though with a somewhat 
different puipose, observes, in "the survey of geological facts, 
a remarkable oneness of system, binding together, in, a single 
plan or scheme, the successive events or creations, from the earliest 
coral or shell-fish to man." 4 The whole geologic series or pro- 
gress constitutes, in this manner, he maintains, " one grand history 
with the creation of man, the last act in the drama of creation." 

3 Ibid, v 117. 



l Essay on Classification, p. 9. 2 Ibid. p. 116. 

4 New Enylander, vi 1. xvi. p. 96. 



138 PREMEDITATION OF GOD 

The point of conviction reached by these great masters of 
science, and stated thus in terms of the truest intellectual in- 
sight, is still not the end of all reason as pertaining to the sub- 
ject in question. If we speak of " prophetic types " fulfilled or 
perfected by future creations, there will, in the same manner, 
be types also that have their fulfilment, after all creations are 
ended, in the spiritual state of men, and the remotest issues 
and last ends of human existence. And as all that God or- 
dains or previously creates, will have some respect to these last 
ends, and the conditions of trial and bad experience through 
which they are to be reached, it is even probable that, if we 
had a perfect insight of any humblest thing, be it only a mol- 
lusc or an insect, we should find some subtle type or reference 
in it to the grandest and most radical facts of the spiritual 
history of the universe. For the premeditation of God and the 
intellectual unity of His thought comprehend more than any 
mere matter of species or frame of geological order; viz., that 
for which all species and all facts of science and all objects of 
scientific study exist. 

So, also, if we speak with Professor Dana of a" remarkable 
oneness of system," geology is, in real fact, no system of God, 
except as we say it by accommodation, which doubtless he 
would also admit ; for there is but one system, and can be only 
one, as there is but one systematizing mind and one last end, 
about which the inferior combinations, sometimes called systems, 
revolve. When, therefore, it is remarked that God's one system 
visibly comprehends all the creation, from coral and shell-fish 
up to man, why not also, we ask, to something farther? — to 
what man will do, and what will be done upon him and for him, 
and finally to all that he will become, when God's last end, that 
in which all system centres, and for which it works, is finally 
consummated ? And what can we look for in this view but that 
God's premeditations about sin, the images it raises, the coun- 
sel it requires, the deaths and abortions it works, and the new 
creations it necessitates, will be coming into view, in all the 
immense, ante-dated eras and mighty revolutions of the geologic 
process. By the mere unity of God's intellectual system they 
ought to appear, and, when they do, they will as truly be con- 
sequences of sin as if they were mere physical effects, subsequent 
in time to the facts. 

There is also another account to be made of these anticipative 



DISCOVERED IN THE FACTS OF SCIENCE. 139 

consequences of sin, viz., that they are necessary for great and 
important uses, in the economy of life, as a spiritual concern. 
Were there no tokens of death, deformity, prey, and abortion, 
in the geologic eras, previous to man's arrival, and were it left 
us to believe that just then and there discord broke loose, and 
the whole frame of paradisiac order was shaken to the fall, we 
might imagine that God was overtaken by some shock for which 
He was not prepared, and that the world fell out of His hands 
by some oversight, which probably enough He can never effectu- 
ally repair. But with so many tokens of anticipative recogni- 
tion found labouring, and heard groaning, through so many eras 
of deaths and hard convulsions, prior to the sin they represent, 
we see, every one of us, in our state of wrong-doing and denial 
of God, that He understands His work from the beginning, is 
taken by no surprise, meets no shock for which he is unpre- 
pared, and holds every part of His kingdom, even from the 
foundation of the world, in fit connexion with the tragic history 
of sin and salvation afterward to be transacted in it. In part 
we see the world reduced to unnature, infected with disease, 
shaken by discord, marred by deformity, subsequently to the 
fact of sin, just as it must be by the retributive action of causes, 
or by the false conjunctions produced by the wrongs and abuses 
of sin. For the rest, it was anticipatively disordered for the 
sake of order, or in terms of necessary unity and counsel, as 
pertaining to the Governing Mind ; displaying thus, in clearer 
and diviner evidence, the eternal insight and all-comprehending 
intelligence of His appointments. For, in being set with types 
all through and from times most ancient, of suffering and de- 
formity, prefiguring, in that manner, the being whose sublime 
struggles are to have it for their field, and showing him, when 
he arrives, how Eternal Forethought has been always shaping 
it to the mould of his fortunes — thus and thus only could he be 
fitly assured, in the wild chaos of sin, of any such Counsel or 
Power as can bring him safely through. 

How magnificent also is the whole course of geology, or the 
geologic eras and changes, taken as related to the future great 
catastrophe of man, and the new-creating, supernatural grace of 
his redemption ! It is as if, standing on some high summit, we 
could see the great primordial world rolling down through gulfs 
and fiery cataclysms, where all the living races die ; thence to 
emerge, again and again, when the Almighty fiat calls it forth, 



140 GEOLOGIC TYPES OF SIN AND REDEMPTION. 

a new creation covered with fresh populations ; passing thus 
through a kind of geologic eternity in so many chapters of 
deaths, and of darting, frisking, singing life ; inaugurating so 
many successive geologic mornings over the smoothed graves of 
the previous extinct races ; and preluding in this manner the 
strange world-history of sin and redemption, wherein all the 
grandest issues of existence lie. This whole tossing, rending, 
recomposing process, that we call geology, symbolizes evidently, 
as in highest reason it should, the grand spiritual catastrophe 
and Christian new- creation of man ; which, both together, 
comprehend the problem of mind, and so the final causes or 
last ends of all God's works. What we see is the beginning 
conversing with the end, and Eternal Forethought reaching 
across the tottering mountains and boiling seas to unite begin- 
ning and end together. So that we may hear the grinding 
layers of the rocks singing harshly — 

Of man's first disobedience and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree; 

and all the long eras of desolation, and refitted bloom and 
beauty, represented in the registers of the world, are but the 
epic in stone of man's great history before the time. 

And of this we are the more impressed, in the fact so power- 
fully shown by Mr Agassiz, that the successive new populations 
of the geologic eras are, beyond a question, fresh creations of 
God summoned into being by His act, and fashioned in the 
moulds of His thought, impossible to be created or fashioned by 
any existing laws and forces in nature. He does not say dis- 
tinctly that they are supernatural creations, he might not so 
understand the word as to be clear of all disrespect in regard 
to it, but the fresh act of creation which he affirms and even 
scientifically proves, exactly answers to our definition of the 
supernatural, as being the action of some agent on the condi- 
tions of nature from without those conditions, and so as to pro- 
duce results which the laws of cause and effect in nature could 
not produce. What a consideration, then, is it that the great 
question of the supernatural, which is now put in issue, and 
upon which depends even the faith of Christianity, as a grand 
supernatural movement of God on the world, is settled, over 
and over again, and the verdict as many times recorded in the 
rocks of the world ! 

In these great anticipative facts of the world, it is very 



DEFORMITIES INCREASE AS 141 

nearly impossible to resist the conviction of the eternal and 
original subserviency even of its solid material structure to re- 
ligion, and especially to Christianity. And exactly this ought 
to be true, if the Christ and his religion be such, and so related 
to the creation as we suppose him to be. All God's most 
ancient works are of course to be found thus in the interest of 
Christianity, answering to it from their distant past, types of 
its coming in the distant future, one with it in design, as being 
issues of the same Eternal Mind. 

It is difficult also to resist the conviction of a use more 
specific and pointed than those to which we have referred. 
Thus, in respect to misshapen monsters and deformed growths, 
it is a remarkable fact that, as the layers of geology rise, and 
creatures are produced that stand higher in the scale of organic 
perfection, the number of deformities and retrograde shapes is 
multiplied. This fact has been strikingly exhibited by Hugh 
Miller, in refutation of the development theory. It permits 
another use, taken as a moral type, of human history. Thus 
the serpent race makes no appearance, he observes, till we 
ascend to the tertiary formation, and there it wriggles out into 
being, contemporaneously with the more stately and perfect 
order of mammalia. When the mammoth stalks abroad as 
the gigantic lord of the new creation, the serpent creeps out 
with him, on his belly, with his bag of poison hid under the 
roots of his feeble teeth, spinning out three or four hundred 
lengths of vertebrae, and having his four rudimental legs 
blanketed under his skin ; a mean, abortive creature, whom the 
angry motherhood of nature would not go on to finish, but shook 
from her lap before the legs were done, muttering, ominously, 
" Cursed art ''thou for man's sake above all cattle ; upon thy 
belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of tny 
life," — powerful type of man, the poison of his sin, the degrada- 
tion of his beauty under it, the possible abortion of his noble 
capacities and divine instincts ! 

It is also shown by Miller, in the same manner, that the fishe? 
lost ground, or grew deformed in organization, as the human era 
drew nigh. 1 Regarding man as the highest form of organization, 
having a head, neck, two hands, and two feet — the latter an- 
swered by the four legs of the beasts, the two wings and legs of 
the birds, and the four fins of the fishes: — every creature 

1 Footprints of the Creator, pp. 183-191. 



HI THE HUMAN ERA APPROACHES. 

will be most perfect in form when his parts are adjusted 
most nearly according to the human analogies ; and it is 
found that all the first fishes were actually in this type of 
agreement. In the second formation, the forward fins are found 
to have slid up, not seldom, and struck themselves close upon the 
head, leaving no neck ; much as if a man were to appear with 
his arms fastened to his head close behind his ears. In a later 
formation, both fins, representing hands and feet, have mounted 
into the same position ; and, as if this were uncomfortable, some 
races have dropped a pair altogether. Then, next, in the chalk 
formation, where the nearest vicinage to man is attained, 
appears the remarkable order that includes the plaice, turbot, 
halibut, and flounder ; the two latter of which are familiar in 
our American waters. They have the four fins stuck close upon 
the head. They are capsized so as to swim on the flat side. 
The mouth is twisted so as to accommodate their false position. 
The two sides of the jaw do not match, one being much larger 
and having three or four times as many teeth as the other. 
The backbone is lateral, occupying one side of the body. One 
eye is fixed in the middle of the forehead, and the other, which 
is much smaller, is thrust out upon one of the side promontories 
of the face. 

What now does this strange process of deformity, chronicled 
in the rocks of the world, signify ? What but that God is 
preparing the field for its occupant ; setting it with types of 
obliquity that shall match, and faithfully figure to man the 
obliquity and deformity of his sin ! Now, then, he at last 
appears, the lord of the creation, a being supernatural, clothed 
in God's image, a power to be trained up to greatness and 
glory — only he will find his way to the magnificent destiny of 
character appointed him, by struggling on, through falls, dis- 
orders, and perishing abortions, and deformities of misdoing, 
that implicate the whole creation, causing it to groan and 
travail with him in his trial. 

It will signify much to such a being, and especially in the 
advanced ages of time, when he seems to be conquering the 
world by his sciences, to find that, as the creation of God was 
rising in order, and the higher forms of life were appearing, in a 
series to be consummated or crowned by the appearing of man, 
tokens also of retrogradation, abortion, defect, deformity, were 
also beginning to appear ; as if to foretoken the moral history 



USES OF SUCH DEFORMITIES. 143 

he will begin, and the humiliations through which he will 
require to be led. Coming in originally as lord and occupant 
to have dominion, and taking possession of it finally in the 
higher dominion of science, a most strange, powerfully humbling 
lesson meets him, exactly suited to his want, and one that 
ought to moderate all undue conceit of science in him, and 
temper him to that teachable state of inquiry that allows the 
nobler and diviner truths of Christianity to visit his heart. 
What does it mean — let any student of nature answer — what 
does it mean that a Perfect Mind, whose very thoughts are 
beauty, generates in the same era and side by side with man, 
such outrageous deformities, as we see, for example, in the 
halibut species ? Here is a deep lesson, worthy of much study. 
There is plainly no account to be made of such appearances, or 
facts, till we bring in the sovereignty of moral ideas, and 
assume the necessity of moral types and lessons. 

On the whole, as the result of this inquiry into the anticipa- 
tive consequences of sin, we must naturally take up the con- 
viction, that the world, or what we call the creation, is not so 
much a completed fact as a conatus, struggling up concomitantly 
with the powers that are doing battle in it for a character; 
falling with them in their fall, rising with them or to rise, to a 
condition, finally, of complete order and beauty. There is 
much to be said for such an expectation, and it appears to be 
just what is held up, in the promise of a new heavens and 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 

The pantheistic form of naturalism, it is well known, makes 
a very different account of the abortions and deformities of the 
world, and also of its future possibilities. It assumes, for a 
fact, that nature is an incomplete or partially developed form 
of being, going on toward perfection, under laws of develop- 
ment contained in itself; therefore necessarily plunging into 
mischances, and producing uncomely or unperfect fruits. Ac- 
cordingly God, who is in fact the all of nature, is a tardy but 
sublime Naturus, who is some time about to be, if He can attain 
to a more complete consciousness in His children, and be cleared 
of the blundering process of development by which necessity is 
at work to shape him into order. Meantime, we ourselves are 
blundering on with Him, they suppose, undergoing a like de- 
velopment. What we called sin, before we became philosophers, 
we now call development, and excuse ourselves from all blame 



144 PANTHEISTIC VIEW OF THEM 

in it, because we are only parts of nature, subject to her laws ; 
parts, that is, of God, and subject to the eternal fate that rules 
Him. 

That a soul, pressed down by the great questions of exist- 
ence, should some time reel into this gulf, is scarcely a subject 
of wonder ; but no healthy, manly soul, none but one that is 
hag-ridden by the dark and spectral difficulties of the world, 
will long stay in it. There is in the scheme, at first view, a 
certain imposing air of rational magnificence — it includes so 
much, it handles even God and His mystery so coolly, and clears 
the question of evil by a solution so easy. 

But after all it is not cleared. "We have called our con- 
sciousness a fool, it is true, in reporting such a thing as sin, 
and have taken the police of our souls into custody to escape 
the conviction of it, and still the sin is here — in us and around 
us. We cannot act our part, for any two hours of our life, 
without assuming its reality. What then becomes of our great 
philosophy, when amusing itself thus in its lofty airs of reason, 
it is yet confronted every moment by the plain, simple denial 
and even scorn of our consciousness ! 

With this too comes the argument of our woe. The air of 
such a creed is too thin to support our life. There is no 
object meeting us to fill our want, there is no meaning or 
heart, in the mute, dead All ; nothing in existence to give it 
significance, or inspire any great act or sentiment. We live in 
a disabled, stunted subjectivity. The inspiration of faith is 
replaced by the impotence of conceit. The world is a blunder, 
consciousness is a lie, the dark things of sin are developments, 
and the All is a Universal Mockery. And then what remains 
but to go back and set up again the great first truth, which no 
mortal can spare for a day, that whatever is wanted, is — there- 
fore God, the Living God shall be our faith ; for Him we want, 
as the complemental good, without which existence is but a 
name for starvation ? 

How many things too are there in the world, after all, that 
can nowise be accounted for by this pantheistic theory ? If the 
disorders and deformities of nature are God in partial develop- 
ment, how is it conceivable that any being, in a state so raw, 
could ever have organized such complicated structures — human 
Dodies for example — where the design is so evident, the parts 
so many and delicate, the offices so manifold, the unity so 



UNREASONABLE AND UNSATISFACTORY. 145 

perfect ? It is inconceivable that any power — call it God, or 
nature, or by whatever name — capable of constructing an 
organization so wonderful, should still be struggling up into 
order, through such grotesque and misbegotten shapes as are 
here accounted for, by the necessary imperfection of its or His 
development; composing first the glorious order of the astro- 
nomic mechanism, then faltering afterward in the absurd com- 
position of a flounder ; able to fashion a creature of reason, 
but not to stand the criticism of reason ; able to start new 
races of living creatures in the successive eras of geology, but 
having yet no will to start anything, apart from the control 01 
fate. And what can such a doctrine make of Jesus Christ, 
what place does it provide in the world for such a being ? If 
nature can develope nothing perfect ; if, by reason of inherent 
defect, it must needs develope itself in blunders of abortion, 
deformity, and pain; will it still suffice to form the mind, 
fashion the beauty, finish the character of a Jesus ? 

But I am assuming here a superiority and perfection of order 
in the character of Jesus that may not be admitted by the 
pantheist, and as the question is hereafter to be discussed, and 
will be made a point of consequence in the argument, I desist 
for the present ; only requiring it of such as look for a God in 
development, to answer how their blind force, called nature, 
staggering on through the disorders, abortions, and deformities 
of so many ages, and even falling into retrogradations as 
remarkable as its improvements, can be imagined to have pro- 
duced such a soul and character as that of Jesus ; a being, 
whether perfect or not, so high, so peculiar, original, pure, wise, 
great in goodness ? 

In this and the preceding chapter, we have now traced the 
consequences of sin : there the consequences that must needs 
follow it, as effects their causes, showing what results of mis- 
chief and disorder it reveals in the soul, the body, society, and 
the world ; here accounting for a large display of correspondent 
facts in the geologic history precedent, or before the arrival of 
man, showing that they still are as truly consequences of the 
fact of sin as the others, being only just those marks that God's 
intelligence, planning the world and shaping it, even from 
eternity, to the uses and issues of a trial comprehending sin, 
must needs display. Sin, it will be seen, is, in this view, a 



146 IMMENSE SIGNIFICANCE OF SIN DISCOVERED. 

very great world-transforming, world-uncreating fact, and no 
such mere casualty, or matter by the way, as the superficial 
naturalism, or half-naturalistic Christianity of our time, sup- 
poses. It is that central fact, about which the whole creation 
of God and the ordering of His providential and moral govern- 
ment revolves. The impression of many appears to be, that 
sin is this or that particular act of wrong which men sometimes 
do, but which most men do not, unless at distant intervals ; and 
who can imagine that anything very serious depends on these 
rather exceptional misdeeds, when, on the whole, the account is 
balanced by so many shows of virtue ? The triviality and 
shallowness of such conceptions are hardly to be spoken of with 
patience. It is not seen that when a man even begins to sin he 
must needs cast away the principle, first, of all holy obedience, 
and go down thus into a general lapse of condition, to be a soul 
broken loose from principle and separated from the inspirations 
of God. Only a very little philosophy too, conceiving the fact 
that sin is the acting of a substance, man, as he was "not made 
to act, must suffice to the discovery that, in a system or scheme 
of perfect order, it will start a ferment of discord among causes 
that will propagate itself in every direction, carrying wide-spread 
desolation into the remotest circles. The whole solidarity of 
being in the creation, physical and spiritual, is necessarily 
penetrated by it and configured to it. Character, causes, things 
prior and post, all that God embraces in the final causes of 
existence, somehow feel it, and the whole creation groans and 
travails for the pain of it. The true Kosmos, in the highest and 
most perfectly ideal sense of that term, does not exist. Nature 
is become unnature, and stopping at the point reached, which of 
course we do not, we must even say that the creation of God is 
a failure. 

But there is an objection to be anticipated here which re- 
quires our attention before we dismiss this part of our subject. 
It is that no proper Kosmos, no crystalline order of nature, ac- 
cording to the view stated in this chapter, has ever yet existed. 
For, if we speak of the state of unnature as a consequence of 
sin, that state of unnature has existed, in part, or as far as it 
should, anticipatively, through all the precedent eras and geo- 
logic processes of the world. The true ideal system of nature, 
therefore, has never existed, and there was never any such con- 
dition or chime of order to fall from, or to shatter by sin, as 



THE KOSMOS STILL EXISTS. 117 

we are trying all the while to suppose. All which is certainly 
true, if we must go entirely back of God's purposes and beyond 
them to find it ; for what we have been tracing as the antici- 
pative consequences of sin is nothing but the working of His 
ancient counsel concerning it. But the real truth is that nature, 
original and true nature, has existed and does now exist ; for, if 
we call our present state, as we truly should, a condition of un- 
nature, we mean by it nothing more than that the causes 
included in pure nature are working now more or less re- 
tributively, painfully, diseasedly, and so as to create a state of 
dislocation in the outward harmonies ; a state of incapacity and 
bondage in the spiritual aspirations of the soul. Nature is un- 
nature when her causes are acting retributively, — they are not, 
in such cases, discontinued, or thrown out of their law ; but 
they act, in their law and under it, as perfectly and systemati- 
cally as ever. The unnaturalness of our present state under sin 
consists, not in the fact that nature is gone by, or is broken up, 
but only in the fact that her causes are all at work on the con- 
trary ingredient, sin. It is as if a good and healthy stomach 
were at work upon a stone to digest it — still it is acting by its 
own laws and powers, as truly as if the stone were meat, though 
its acting is only a throe of distress. Were everything, indeed, 
now rolling on in sweetest bonds of harmony, according to the 
pure ideal of what we call nature, nothing of bad consequence 
or penal and retributive action anywhere appearing in it, no dis- 
order of sin visible anywhere as a fact of anticipation, still 
nature would not be more truly extant than now ; for the dis- 
order and unnature we speak of are really order and nature 
chastising the false fact, sin ; which process of chastisement and 
groaning we call unnature, only because it does not answer, 
thus far, to the ideal working of the scheme, disturbed by no 
such enemy of God and all good as it has here met. Nor does 
it make any the least difference, except with some speculative 
wordsman, grubbing under space and time, whether death and 
■nrey and other like consequences of sin began to work, before 
the arrival here of man, or only after. If God's Whole Plan re- 
spects the fact of sin before the fact, the scheme of nature was 
none the less real or perfect, because of the unnature working 
anticipatively in it, any more than it follows that the unnature 
subsequent has discontinued nature, whose retaliatory action it 
really is, and .nothing more. 



148 NATURE AS A WHOLE BECOME UNNATURE 

Unnature then — this is our conclusion — a far-reaching, all- 
comprehensive state of unnature, is the consequence of sin. It 
mars the body, the soul, society, the world, all time before and 
after. What an argument then have we, and especially from 
the ante -dated tokens of evil, for the belief that God's original 
plan comprehends a rising side, an economy supernatural, that 
shall complement the disorder and fall of nature, having power 
to roll back its currents of penal misery, and bring out souls 
into the established liberty and beauty of holiness. How mani- 
fest is it in the world's birth that God, from the first, designs 
it for a second birth ; some grand palingennesia that shall raise 
the fall of nature and make existence fruitful. It has been a 
great fault, as was just now intimated, that we have made so 
little of sin. It is either nothing, or else it is a great deal 
more than it is conceived to be by the multitude who admit 
its existence. The mental and moral philosophers make nothing 
of it, going on to construct their sciences, so called, precisely as 
if the soul had received no shock of detriment ; and even the 
most orthodox theologians do scarcely more than score it with 
guilty conviction, regarding it seldom as a dynamic force, and 
then with a comprehension too restricted to allow any true im- 
pression of its import. Hence, in great part, the general in- 
credulity in regard to the supernatural facts of Christianity. 
There can be nothing supernatural, we think, because it would 
violate the integrity of nature. The integrity of nature ! 
What but a world of unnature has it become already ? And 
what has sent these hard pangs into it and through it but a 
supernatural force, even the human will ? for this, we have 
seen, is a power supernatural as truly as God, though not equal 
in degree ; able to act on the lines of causes and vary their 
conjunctions from without, even as He is represented in the 
Christian truth to do. Hence the disorder and disease ; hence 
the groaning and travailing in pain together of the whole crea- 
tion — it is all the supernatural work, the bad miracle of sin. 
No other name will fitly name it. Indeed, if there should be 
somewhere in the universe a race of beings that have never 
sinned, and they should have it set before them in all its conse- 
quences to the physical order of things, they would look upon 
it, we suspect, as a miraculous agency, exerted in God's universe 
opposite to Himself. And they would begin, we fear, to say 
with Mr Hume, unless they were better philosophers than he, 



IS THERE TO BE A REMEDY? 149 

that such a miracle is wholly incredible ; that the confidence 
they have in the beneficent, harmonious action of nature, is too 
strong to be broken by any possible testimony to such doings. 
Therefore this tremendous, all-revolutionizing miracle must be 
a fiction. 

Of course it is not a miracle. It is only a fact supernatural 
— a grand assault of man's supernatural agency upon the world. 
We shall speak more definitely of miracles hereafter. For the 
present, we only say that the supernatural agency of God in 
the world's redemption is now shown to be most clearly 
wanted ; and we do not perceive wherein it is more incredible 
that God should act, in His way, upon the lines of natural 
causes, than that we should do it in ours. Of course He will 
act with a higher sovereignty worthy of Himself. His divine 
supernatural power will be divine, our human will be human. 
If we have broken or clouded the crystal and cannot restore 
its transparency, He can. If we bring deformity, He will bring 
beauty. If we die, He will bid us live. Will He do this ? 
That is now the question that remains. 



150 NO REMEDY IN DEVELOPMENT 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NO REMEDY IN DEVELOPMENT OR SELF-REFORMATION. 

We are now at the point of catastrophe in God's plan, where 
it is next in order to look about for some remedial agency or 
dispensation that shall restore the lapse and bring out those re- 
sults of order and happiness that were proposed by God, as we 
must believe, in His act of creation. Are we then shut up to 
nature and the hope that she will surmount her own catas- 
trophe, or may we believe that her inherent weakness will be 
complemented by a supernatural and divine movement that 
shall organize a new economy of life ? 

The former is the ground taken by all the naturalizing classes 
of our time. Nothing can take place, they say, which is not 
operated under and by the laws of nature. To believe that any- 
thing can take place which is from without, or from above the 
laws of nature, is unphilosophical and savours of credulity. 
That there is such a thing as misdirection they will admit, and 
some will admit also the fact of sin ; and it will be agreed by 
them all that, in consequence either of misdirection or of sin, 
there are a great many apparent disasters and disorders in the 
world, or especially in human society, that want some kind of 
remedy. Our present object is to look into their principal 
remedies, or grounds of expected restoration, and try what 
virtue there is in them. They are two, or presented under two 
distinct forms, both of which may be taken as rival gospels 
opposite to Christianity. 

By the class who formally reject or ignore Christianity, 
development is regarded as the universal panacea — all the 
apparent evils of the world are to be cured by development. 

The class who professedly teach and believe the Christian 



OR SELF-REFORMATION 151 

gospel, reducing it still to a mere scheme of ethics or natural 
virtue, rely more on the individual will to be exerted in self- 
government, self-culture, and the doing of justice, mercy, and 
other good works. 

Of these rival gospels, both from within the terms of nature, 
I will now speak in their order. 

I. Of development, or, as it is often phrased, the natural 
progress of the race. 

The world is just now taken, as never before, with ideas of 
progress. The human race, it is conceived, exists under laws of 
progress. The philosophers, or would-be philosophers, have 
even undertaken to reduce the laws of progress to a scientific 
statement. They conceive that all the advanced races of man- 
kind began at the level of the savage state, and have been set 
forward to their present pitch of culture, civilization, wealth, 
and liberty, by laws of development in mere nature. The mul- 
titude go after them, embracing the welcome idea of progress 
only the more enthusiastically, that they are so much taken 
with the new word development, conceiving that there is great 
science in it, or, at least, some unknown kind of power. If 
there are any evils, or bitter woes in society, development is 
going to cure them ; for the laws of development are at work 
to produce progress, and they will as certainly do it as the laws 
of matter will determine its motions. All crime and sin are 
going finally to be cured in this manner, and character is going 
finally to blossom, on the broken stock of nature, even as 
flowers are developed out of stocks not broken, and roots not 
poisoned by disease. Finding thus a gospel of progress in the 
world itself and the mere laws of existence, what need of any 
such antiquated mythology as the Christian gospel brings us ? 
Or, if the argument is not openly stated in this manner, still it 
is virtually adopted ; for how many that suppose Christianity 
to be true, still have it only as a thing by the way, a straw 
floating down this flood and passing on with us, to see the 
brave work human progress is doing. If it is not called a 
myth or wild tradition, still the really trusted gospel is phreno- 
logy, chemistry, and the other new sciences, with their grand 
economic creations, such as telegraphs, railroads, steamboats, 
and the like — (not omitting the new and better bible discovered 
in the oracles of necromancy) — and these are going at last to 
raise the world, no thanks to Christianity, into a state of uni- 



152 THE TRUE DEVELOPMENT 

versal brotherhood and felicity ! The lowest charlatans, and 
some of the most cultivated savans, hold much the same lan- 
guage, and trust in the same gospel of development. 

Now that there is or should be such a thing as development, 
we certainly admit. All the human faculties are capable of 
development by exercise or training, and every human being 
will, of necessity, be developed to a certain degree, both in 
mind and body, by the growth of years and the necessary 
struggles of life. But that human society was ever carried 
forward by a single shade, in the matter of religious virtue, 
under mere laws of natural development, we utterly deny. It 
is even a fair subject of doubt whether any nation or race of 
men was ever advanced in civilization by inherent laws of pro- 
gress. Certain it is that no individual was ever cleared of sin 
by development, or restored even proximately to the state of 
primal order and uprightness ; equally so that the vast, far- 
spreading, organic woes of the world are for ever immedicable 
by any such remedy. 

In one view, it may be rightly said that the whole object of 
God, in our training, is to develope in us a character of eternal 
uprightness ; developing also, in that manner, as a necessary 
consequence, gfand possibilities of social order and wellbeing ; 
though, when we thus speak, we include the fact of sin and the 
engagement with it of a supernatural grace, to lift up the other- 
wise remediless fall of nature. But this, if we must have the 
word, is Christian development ; a development accomplished 
by carrying us across and up out of the gulf of unnature, where 
the hope of all progress and character was ended. We are 
developed, in this sense, by and through an experience of that 
state of wrong, whose woe it is that it is the fall of nature, and, 
in that sense, the end of all development. But this, it will be 
seen, is not the popular doctrine of progress, which assumes the 
fact of a progress in right lines, without any call for supernatural 
interference, without any regenerative or new-creative process. 
There may be hard throes of suffering experience, and bitter 
struggles with individual and social evils, but time, it is sup- 
posed, will teach, and experience redeem, and so the great 
battle of natural development will lead to final victory. In this 
manner progress, it is supposed, will at last cure all the evils 
which we have been recapitulating as the fruit and fall of sin. 
That such a hope is groundless we will now undertake to show. 



INCLUDES REGENERATION. 153 

Consider, first, the savage state, whence it is continually as- 
sumed that history and civilization spring. The doctrine is, that 
all the advanced nations of mankind began as savages, and that 
all the peoples of the world now existing are on their way up out 
of the savage state into civilization and a state of social virtue. 
Contrary to this, no savage race of the world has ever been 
raised into civilization, least of all into a state of virtue by 
mere natural development. All which is evident by just that 
which distinguishes the savage state ; for it is the principal and, 
in fact, only comprehensive distinction of the savage races, that 
they are such as have fallen below progress, living on from age 
to age without progress, and sometimes quite dying out ; for 
the simple reason, that there is no sufficient capacity of progress 
left to perpetuate their life in proximity with more advanced 
races. They are beings or races physiologically run down or 
become effete under sin ; fallen at last below progress, below 
society, become a herd no longer capable of public organization, 
and a true, social life. It signifies nothing for such races to 
ask more time ; time can do nothing for them better than ex- 
termination. It is well if even a gospel and a faith above 
nature can now get such hold of them as to raise them. They 
are, in fact, just as far off from the original unpractised unde- 
veloped state of nature, as the most advanced races ; and, as 
David said over the child — " I shall go to him, but he shall not 
return to me," so it is possible for the living and advanced 
races to go downward, but never for these dead ones, unassisted, 
to rise. We have proofs enough that peoples advanced in cul- 
ture may become savages, but no solitary example of a race of 
savages that have risen to a civilized state by mere development. 
And the real fact is, that we may much better assert a law of 
natural deterioration than a law of natural progress ; for, apart 
from some influence or aid of a supernatural kind, the deterio- 
ration of society, under the penal mischiefs of sin, would be 
universal. By the supposition it should be so ; for, as all so- 
ciety is under sin, it is of course suffering the retributive action 
of penal causes ; and as all discord propagates only greater dis- 
cord and cannot propagate harmony, it follows that the run of 
society under sin must be downward, from bad to worse, unless 
interrupted by some remedial agency from without. 

It is somewhat difficult to test our particular opinion on this 
subject by actual examples ; for we cannot commonly trace 



154 THE SAVAGE IS NOT A FRESH 

the unhistoric and subtle methods, in which any race of men 
may have been impregnated with new possibilities ; sometimes 
by other religions, with which they are made conversant by 
commerce and travel ; sometimes by sporadic and supernatural 
revelations ; traces of which are clecernible, not only in the 
extra-Jewish examples of Jethro, Job, and Cornelius, but in 
the literature of all the cultivated races, and sometimes, here 
and there, in the demonstrations even of the wild races. That 
the old Pelasgic race was raised, by a mere natural progress, to 
the high pitch of culture displayed by the Greek civilization, we 
have no reason whatever to believe. Their literature, from 
Hesiod downward, is sprinkled with too many traces of senti- 
ment derived from the Jewish and Egyptian religions, to suffer 
the opinion that they are a nation thus advanced, by the simple 
motherhood of nature. The Eoman civilization was, in fact, a 
propagation of the Greek, with the advantage of a right infusion 
from her serious and venerable fathers, who, like Numa, com- 
muned with invisible powers in retired groves and silent 
grottoes. The Teutonic race, often named as an example of 
natural development, is known to have been set forward by the 
civilizations it conquered and its early conversion to the Chris- 
tian faith. Meantime how many great and powerful races have 
become extinct. We look for the Ninevites with as little hope 
as for Ninus himself. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Medes 
are also vanished. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, Etruscans, 
Romans, once the great powers of history and civilization, are 
extinct. The Aztec race, run down to such a state of incapacity 
as not even to understand their own monuments, or know by 
whom they were built, we rightly call savages, and look upon as 
having just now come to their vanishing point. 

What now does it mean that so many races, empires, lan- 
guages of the world, have become extinct ? Is this a token of 
infallible development ? Do we see in this the proof that all the 
evil and sin of the world are going, at last, to be surmounted and 
cleared by the inevitable law of progress ? What would our 
new prophets of development say, if they were told, when exult- 
ing so confidently in the glorious future of their own and all 
other nations, that a day will certainly be reached, when the 
Anglo-American race is become an extinct race, Washington a 
contested locality, and the Constitution of the United States a 
hopeless search of the world's antiquarians ? Distant as such 



BUT AN OLD STATE. 155 

an expectation may be from our thoughts, and contrary as it may 
be to the illimitable progress of which we hear so often, it is 
only that which has happened a hundred times already, and may 
as well happen again. 

We have spoken of the evident falsity of the supposition, 
that all the advancement of the world begins at an originally 
savage state ; that being, in fact, no first, but an old and 
decayed state rather, where long ages of deterioration under 
sin have finally extirpated the original possibilities of advance- 
ment. The first stage of human society was simply a stage of 
crudity, or crude capacity, and was not more remote from the 
state of high civilization than it was from the low, decrepid, 
animalized condition which we now designate by the term 
savage. All races begin together at the state of simple being, 
or crude capacity, and only make the fatal leap of sin together. 
After that they separate, some ascending, led up by their holy 
seers and lawgivers, and others, not having or not giving heed 
to such, going down the scale of penal deteriorations to become 
savages. A full half the globe is peopled thus by tribes which 
are either reduced to the savage condition, or else are far on 
their way toward it ; humbled in capacity, physically deterio- 
rated, and that to such a degree, that the springs of recuperative 
force appear to be quite gone. Considering now the certain fact, 
that all these had their beginning in a simply crude state, having 
the same high possibilities and affinities, which the races had 
that are now most advanced, what are we to think of mere de- 
velopment ? This advantage or condition of crude possibility 
they had, many thousands of years ago,, and the result is what 
we see. Having run down thus miserably under the boasted 
gospel of natural progress, what hope is there in this gospel for 
the final restoration of all things ? 

It is fatally opposed too by the geologic analogies. Here it 
stands, the settled verdict of science itself, that the successive 
eras of vegetable and animal life have not been introduced, by 
any law of progress, or by any mere development of nature and 
her forces. The attempts that have been made to show this are 
even pitiable failures. They ask us, in fact, to believe greater 
miracles in the name of development than any we encounter in 
the gospel history. Thus, we have displayed in the new erea 
tions of the rocks themselves, a standing type of that moral new 
creation, by which the distempered and fallen races of the world 



156 HEALING FUNCTION NO MODE OF DEVELOPMENT. 

are to be raised up. Lest we should think any such divine in- 
tervention incredible, and try to find some better hope for man 
in the gospel of development, we are here familiarized with the 
fact, that no such law of development has been able to carry on 
the geologic progress of the planet, and that God has been wont, 
in all its ancient depopulations, to insert new germs of life 
creatively, and people it with living creatures fresh from His 
hand. 

Again, it is a consideration scarcely less impressive, that Grod 
has managed to insert into the physiological history of animals 
and vegetables an always-present, living type of the process 
itself, by which, as transcending all mere development, His 
supernatural remedy operates ; so that we may see it, as it 
were, with our eyes, and become familiar with it. I refer to 
that wondrous, inexplicable function of healing, discovered in 
the restoration or repair of animals and vegetables, that are 
wounded or sick. When a tree, for example, is hacked or 
bruised, a strange nursing process forthwith begins, by which 
the wound is healed. A new bark is formed on the edges of 
the wound, by what method no art of man can trace, the dead 
matter is thrown off, and a growth inward narrows the breach, 
till finally the two margins meet and the tissues interweave, 
and not even a scar is left. So in all the flesh wounds of 
animals, and the fractures even of bones. So too in regard to 
all diseases not terminating mortally ; they pass a crisis, where 
the healing function, whatever it be, triumphs over the poison 
of the disease, and a recovery follows, in which the whole flesh 
and fibre appear even to be produced anew. 

Here, then, is a healing power whose working we can no 
way trace, and one that, if we look at the causes of disintegra- 
tion present, appears even to accomplish what is impossible. 
Regarding the body as a machine — and taken as a merely 
material organization, what is it more ? — it is plainly impossible 
for it to heal, in this manner, and repair itself. The disordered 
watch can never run itself into good repair. In machines, dis- 
order can only propagate and aggravate disorder till they become 
a wreck. The physicians and physiologists call the strange 
healing function the vis medicatrix ; as if it were some gentle, 
feminine nurse hidden from the sight, whose office it is to expel 
the poisons, knit the fractures, and heal the wounds of bodies. 
And as names olten settle the profoundest questions, so it ap- 



HEALING FUNCTION NOT DEVELOPMENT. 157 

pears to be commonly taken for granted here, that the healing 
accomplished is wrought by a nursing function thus named, as 
one of the inherent properties of vital substances. It may be 
so or it may not ; for the whole question is one that is involved 
in the profoundest mystery. The healing property may be one 
of the incidents of life itself, or it may be a distinct power 
whose office it is to be the guard and medicating nurse of life, 
or it may be the working of a grand supernatural economy set 
in closest vicinage to nature, to be the physical, visible, always 
present token of a like supernatural economy in the matters of 
character and the soul. But whatever view we take of this 
healing power in physiology, or whatever account we make of 
it, these two points are clear. 

First, that the healing accomplished is no fact of develop- 
ment. There is no difficulty in seeing how existing tissues and 
organs may create extensions within their own vascular sphere ; 
and this is development. But where a new skin or bark is to 
be created, or a new interlocking made of parts that are sun- 
dered, the ducts and vesicles that might act in development, 
being parted and open at their ends, want mending themselves. 
Thus, when the parts of a fractured bone are knit together, 
and we see them reaching after each other, as it were across a 
chasm, where there are no vessels to bridge it or carry across 
the lines of connexion, development might well enough make 
the parts longer, but how could it make them unite across the 
fracture by which they are separated ? The development of a 
tree, wounded by some violence, would only enlarge the wound, 
just in proportion to the enlargement of the surface which the 
bark should cover. A fevered body does not cure itself by 
development. As little can we imagine that the restored 
health and volume of the body is created by the development 
of the fever. No shade of countenance, therefore, is given 
to the hope that human development, under the retributive 
woes of sin, will be any sufficient cure of its disorders, or 
will set the fallen subjects of it forward in a course of social 
progress. 

This also, secondly, is equally clear, that, as the mysterious 
healing of bodies yields the development theory no token of 
favour, it is only a more impressive type, on that account, of 
some grand restorative economy, by which the condition of un- 
nature in souls and the world is to be supernaturally regene- 



158 HEALING FUNCTION NOT DEVELOPMENT. 

rated — -just such a type as, regarding the relations of matter to 
mind, and of things natural to things spiritual, we might expect 
to find incorporated in some large and systematic way, in the 
visible objects and processes of the world. And how much 
does the healing of bodies signify, when associated thus with 
the grand elemental disorder and breakage of sin ! What is it, 
in fact, but a kind of glorious, everywhere visible sacrament, that 
tokens life, and hope, and healing invisible, for all the retributive 
woes and bleeding lacerations of our guilty fallen state, as a race 
apostate from God. 

Hence too, probably, the fact that transactions of healing 
are so closely connected, the world over, with sentiments of 
religion. Perhaps the fact is due, in part to some latent as- 
sociation that connects diseases with sin, and, to much the same 
extent, connects the hope of healing with some possibility of a 
divine medication. However this may be, the mystery of heal- 
ing, as we are constituted, stands in close affinity with God and 
the faith of His supernatural operation. Thus it was that the 
priests both of the Egyptians and the Greeks were their phy- 
sicians, and that their precepts and prescripts of healing were 
kept in their temples. iEsculapius, too, the god of medicine, 
had his own altars and priests. At a later period, the Essenes 
and the Christian monks, accounted by some to be their succes- 
sors, had their pious explorations of diseases and the sacred 
powers of remedies ; reducing medicine itself to a function of 
religion. Later still, Paracelsus himself began the restoration 
of medicine, as a kind of chemical theosophy. And as Chris- 
tianity itself classes healings among the spiritual gifts, and calls 
the elders of the Church to pray for the sick ; so we find that 
some of our Indian tribes have traditions of one whom, as re- 
lated to the Great Spirit, they call the Uncle, and who came 
into the world by a mysterious advent, long ages ago, and 
instituted the " Grand Medicine," which is, in fact, their 
religion. 

It is difficult to resist the impression, in such demonstrations 
as these, of some very profound connexion between the healing 
of bodies and the faith of a supernatural grace of healing for 
the disorders of souls. Else why this persistent tendency in 
men's opinions of healing, to associate the fevered body and 
the leprous mind, and seek the medication of both in the com- 
mon rites of religion ? 



WE HAVE NO FAITH IN DEVELOPMENT. 159 

But there is a shorter argument with the scheme that pro- 
poses to find a remedy for all the ills of character and society, 
in what it calls a more complete development. It is this : 
That no one ever dares practically to act on the faith of such 
a doctrine, whether in the state or the family. The civil law 
is, in fact, and to a very great extent, a restraint on develop- 
ment, and has its merit in the fact that it is. It forbids men 
to unfold themselves freely, in their base passions and criminal 
instigations, and deters them from it. Were it not for the 
state protecting itself by such means against development, 
society would be quite dissolved. What we discover in families 
is even more remarkable. There are multitudes of parents that 
believe, as they suppose, with all their hearts, in the good day 
coming through the progress of human development. And as 
part of the same general faith, their views of education make 
it to consist simply in educing or developing just what is in 
the child's nature. But they do not act on that principle in 
the house, and dare not; though probably enough they are never 
aware of the fact. They maintain a family regimen that con- 
sists, to a great degree, not in development but in repression. 
To let the child have his way and act himself out freely, with- 
out restraint, is no part of their plan. Probably it never occurs 
to them as a rational possibility. Just contrary to this, they 
lay their foundations in a restriction of natural development ; 
hoping in that manner to extirpate unruly and base instigations, 
and form a habit in the child of doing better things than he 
would most naturally do. And it is remarkable that, in the 
fulfilling of their office, which is so far an office of repression, 
they are acting as a force supernatural. According to our 
definition, it will be remembered that human wills are strictly 
supernatural in their action, and the child, we here discover, 
spends all the first years of his life under the regulative and 
repressive action of such wills. He is in them, in fact, more 
truly than he is in nature, and the house is a little creation 
made for him by their keeping. He is handled in infancy as 
they direct, fed as they direct when he begins to ask for food, 
clothed as they direct, commanded, limited, forbidden, repressed, 
and so is finally grown up to an age of self-regulation. The 
process may be called his development, but the most remark- 
able thing in it is that it is a restraint of development. Why 
this restraint ? If development is going to be the gospel of the 



160 SELF-REFORMATION 

world's redemption, what makes it wise, in the common sense of 
the world, to restrain that gospel ? Are the ills of society and 
the world going to be cured too soon ? If development can do 
all that is promised, why not give it a hearty godspeed every- 
where, and let every human creature, old and young, act out 
what is in him, in the speediest, most unrestricted manner 
possible ? A glance in this direction is sufficient to show us 
that all we hear of inevitable progress, and the necessary laws of 
development, is hollow and deceitful. It is not development but 
new creation that can bring us the remedies we look for. 
Nature has powers and capabilities that want development. 
Reduced to real unnature (which is her present state), she also 
has disordered passions, base instigations, greedy appetites, 
ferocious animosities, propensities to cunning and falsehood, 
which want no development, and which, if they are developed, 
unrestrained, annihilate all chance of progress, and even forbid 
the existence of society. Mere development therefore promises 
nothing. 

We come now — 

II. To the other rival gospel, that which proposes to dispense 
with all supernatural aids, and to restore the disorders and the 
fallen character of sin by a self- cultivated or self- originated 
virtue. 

Expectation is here rested on the human will, which, in our 
view, may be done, it will be said, with greater reason, since 
we make it, even by definition, a supernatural power. But 
there are different orders or degrees, it must be observed, of 
supernatural power ; the human, the angelic, the divine ; which 
are all alike in the fact that the will acts from itself, uncaused in 
its action, but very unlike as regards potency, or the extent of 
their efficacy. What we are endeavouring in our argument to 
show is, the fact of a divine supernatural agency concerned in 
the upraising or redemption of man. But if man can raise 
himself by his own will, that is, by his humanly supernatural 
force, then plainly there is no need of a divine intervention 
from without and above nature to regenerate his fallen state. 
Still it will not be denied by the class of teachers most forward 
in maintaining this form of naturalism, that all religious virtue 
is dependent, in a certain sense, on the concourse and spiritual 
helping of God. Only that concourse and helping, it will be 
said, belongs to the scheme of nature, and never undertakes to 



NO SUFFICIENT HOPE 161 

help us out of the retributive woes and disorders of nature ; for 
nature is the system of God, including all He does or can 
rationally be expected to do. To imagine that such a mode of 
piety or religious virtue should be maintained by the human 
will, would be less extravagant if there were no sin, no conse- 
quent woes and disorders ; though even then it would be the 
faith of a God imprisoned or entombed in the inexorable laws 
of nature ; with whom the soul could aspire to no real con- 
verse, and could have no social sympathy, more than with a 
wall. Before this unbending prisoner of fate, this nature-God, 
this dead wall, he might go on to dress up a character and 
fashion a merely ethical virtue ; cultivating truth, honesty, 
justice, temperance, kindness, piling up acts of merit, and doing 
legal works of charity ; but to call this character religious, how- 
ever plausible the show it makes, is only an abuse of the term. 
Religious character is not legal. It is an inspiration — the Life 
of God in the Soul of man ; and no such life can ever quicken 
a soul except in the faith of a Living God, which here is 
manifestly wanting. Not even the pure angels could subsist in 
such a style of virtue ; for ft is the strength and beatitude of 
their holiness, that it is no will-work in them, but an eternal, 
immediate inspiration of God. Consciously it is not theirs, 
but the inbreathing life of their father. 

But this ethical gospel, this religion acted as in pantomime, 
becomes even more insipid and absurd, when the fact of sin, 
with all its consequences of distemper and disorder, is admitted. 
Now the problem is to find by what power the original har- 
mony of nature can be reconstructed, and its currents of penal 
disaster turned back. Can the human will do this ? That it 
can act upon the courses of nature we know, — sin itself indeed 
is the staring and incontrovertible proof that it can. But it 
does not follow, as we have said already, that the power which 
has broken an egg, or shivered a crystal, can mend it. That is 
a thing more difficult, and demands a higher power. 

Consider simply the change that is needed to restore the 
lapsed integrity of a soul. Its original spontaneity to good is 
gone, its silver cord of harmony is broken, the sweet order of 
life is turned into a tumult of inward bitterness, its very laws 
are become its tormentors. All its curious, multiform, scarcely 
conceivable functions, submitted by its laws to the will, are now 
contesting always with each other, and are wholly intractable 



162 SELF-RESTORATION IS IMPOSSIBLE. 

to its sovereignty. And still it is expected of the will, that it is 
going to gather them all up into the primal order, and recon- 
struct their shattered unity ! Why, it were easier, a thousand- 
fold, for man's will to gather all the birds of the sky into 
martial order, and march them as a squadron through the 
tempests of the air ! Manifestly none but God can restore the 
lapsed order of the soul. He alone can reconstruct the crystal- 
line unity. Which, if He does, it will imply an acting on those 
lines of causes in its nature, by whose penal efficacy it is dis- 
tempered; and that is, by the supposition, a supernatural 
operation. 

Besides, the work is really not done, till the subject is re- 
stored to a virtue whose essence is liberty. And how is man, 
by his mere will, to start the flow of liberty ? He may do this 
and do that, and keep doing this and that, carefully, punctili- 
ously, suffering no slackness. But it will be work, work only, 
and the play of liberty will never come. He can never reach 
the true liberty till an inspiration takes him, and the new birth 
of God's Spirit makes him a son. The light he manufactures 
will be darkness, or at best a pale 'phosphorescence, till Christ 
is revealed within. His self-culture may fashion a picture 
with many marks of grace, but the quickening of God alone 
can make it live. If he relish his work in a degree, it will be 
the relish of conceit, not the living fountain of a heavenly j'03 7 , 
bursting up from unseen depths within. He will advance fit- 
fully, eccentrically, and without balance, making a grimace here, 
while he fashions a beauty there ; for there is no balance of 
order and proportion till his faith is rested in God, and his life 
flows out from the divine plenitude and perfection. Meantime 
his ideals will grow faster than his attainments, and if he is not 
wholly drunk up in conceit, he will be only the more afflicted 
and baffled the greater his pertinacity. Oh, if there be any kind 
of life most sad, and deepest in the scale of pity, it is the dry, 
cold impotence of one who is honestly set to the work of his own 
self-redemption ! 

Do we then affirm, it will be asked, the absolute inability of a 
man to do and become what is right before God ? That is the 
Christian doctrine, and there is none that is more obviously true. 
Wherein, then, it may also be asked, is there any ground of 
blame for continuance in sin? Because, we answer, there is a 
Living God engaged to help us, and inviting always our accept- 



SELF-RESTORATION IS IMPOSSIBLE. 163 

ance of His help. Nor is this any mere gracious ability, such 
as constitutes the joy of some and the offence of others. No 
created being of any world, not even the new-formed man before 
his fall, nor the glorified saint, nor the spotless angel, had ever 
any possibility of holiness, except in the embrace of God. This 
is the normal condition of all souls, 'that they be filled with God, 
acted by God, holding their will in His, irradiated always by His 
all- supporting life. Just this it is that constitutes the radical 
idea of religion, and differs it from a mere ethical virtue. God 
is the prime necessity of all religious virtue, and is only more 
emphatically so to beings under sin. The necessity is con- 
stituent, not penal ; it becomes penal only when communications 
originally given to the fallen, but now cast away by their sin, 
require to be restored. 

There is really no difficulty in this question of disability 
under sin, save that which is created by the fogs of unintelli- 
gent speculation. It is taken extensively, as if it were a ques- 
tion regarding man's inherent, independent ability, when in fact 
he has no such ability to anything. Can he obey God or 
not ? is he able to do God's will or not ? is the question raised; 
and it is understood and discussed as being a question that 
turns on the absolute quantities of the man, and not in any 
respect on relative aids and conditions without ; much as if the 
question were whether he has weight, apart from all relative 
weights or attractions ? or whether he can stand alone apart 
from anything to stand upon ? or whether he has power to live a 
year, apart from all food and light and shelter and air ? The 
true question of ability is different. It is this : Whether the 
subject is able to rise into a holy life, taken as insphered in God, 
and all the attractive, transforming, and supporting influences of 
the grace of God ? Apart from this, he certainly is not able. 
By mere working on himself and manipulating, as it were, his 
body of sin and death, he can do just nothing in the way of self- 
perfection ; and, if he could even do everything as regards self- 
transformation, there would be no religious character in the 
result, any more than if his works were done before the moon. 
Religious character is God in the soul, and without that all 
pretences of religious virtue are, in fact, atheistic. Such is the 
disability of a fallen man, taken as acting on himself; and the 
condition of an angel, acting in that manner, is no better ; for 
he could not begin to act thus, without being himself fallen, at 



161 RESTORATION POSSIBLE 

the instant. But if the question be what a man has power to 
do, taken in the surroundings of Divine truth and mercy, which 
in fact include the co-operating grace of the Divine Spirit, the 
true answer is that he can do all things. He has at every 
moment a complete power as respects doing what God requires of 
him at that moment, and is responsible according to his power. 
And yet, when we say a complete power, we mean, not so much 
that he is going even then to do something himself, as that he 
is going to have something done within by the quickening and 
transforming power of his divine Lord, in whom he trusts. His 
power is to set himself before power, open his nature to the 
rule of power, and so to live. Even as we may say that a tree 
has power to live and grow, not by acting on itself and willing 
to grow, but as it is ministered unto by its natural surround- 
ings, the soil, the sun, the dew, the air. It has only to offer 
itself openly and receptively to these, and by their force to 
grow. 

Where, then, it may be asked, is the significance of free will, 
which we have even shown to be a power supernatural ? If the 
disordered soul cannot restore itself, or by diligent self-culture 
regain the loss it has made by sin, wherein lies the advantage 
of such a power, and where the responsibility to a life of holy 
virtue ? Our answer is, that by the freedom of the will we 
understand simply its freedom as a volitional function; but 
mere volitions, taken by themselves, involve no capacity to re- 
generate or constitute a character. Holy virtue is not an act 
or compilation of acts taken merely as volitions, but it is a new 
state, or status rather, a right disposedness, whence new action 
may flow. And no mere volitional exercise can change the state 
or disposedness of the soul, without concurrent help and grace. 
We can will anything, but the execution may not follow. To 
will may be present, but how to perform it may be difficult to 
find, — difficult, that is, when simply acting in and upon our- 
selves ; never difficult, never possible to fail in doing, when 
acting before and toward a Divine Helper, trustfully appealed 
to. And this is the power of the will, as regards our moral 
recovery. It may so offer itself and the subordinate capacities 
to God, that God shall have the whole man open to His do- 
minion, and be able to ingenerate in him a new divine state or 
principle of action; while, taken as a governing, cultivating 
and perfecting power in itself, it has no such capacity whatso- 



ONLY BY THE GRACE OF GOD. 165 

ever. And this is the only rational and true verdict. Say 
what we may of the will as a strictly self- determining power, 
raise what distinctions we may as regards the kinds of ability, 
such as natural and moral, antecedent and subsequent, we 
have no ability at all, of any kind, to regenerate our own state, or 
restore our own disorders. Salvation is by faith, or there is 



There is then, we conclude, no hope of a restoration of 
society, or of a religious upraising of man, except in a super- 
natural and Divine operation. Progress under sin, by laws of 
natural development, is a fiction — there is no hope of progress, 
apart from the regenerative and quickening power of a grace 
that transcends mere natural conditions and causes. As little 
room is there to expect that men will be able to heal their own 
spiritual maladies and cultivate themselves into heaven's order, 
by a merely ethical regimen maintained in the plane of nature. 
The only remedy for the human state, under sin, is that which 
comes into nature as the revelation of a divine force. 

Suppose now there might be found some great and profound 
thinker, who has never come under the impress of Christianity, 
or even heard of such a thing as a plan of supernatural redemp- 
tion ; a man of the highest culture, least under the power of 
superstition; a free-thinker as regards the religion of his 
country and times ; and suppose that he, by the mere force of 
his own thought, struggling with the great problem of humanity, 
society, and progress, should be found to rest his hope deliber- 
ately on some supernatural remedy, as the only sufficient 
remedy for the world ; giving forth a testimony that has been 
audited and accepted by the greatest and best minds of all 
subsequent ages ; revealing, as it were, a Christianity before 
the time, as far as the want of it and the fact of some such 
operative power are concerned ; how unlikely will it be that 
some new science of development, or some more rational 
gospel of self-culture, has just now discovered the essential 
weakness or childishness of a supernatural faith ? Precisely 
such a witness we have in the great Plato, seconded by 
the coincident testimony of many others, only less conspicuous 
than he. 

Beginning at the base note of human depravity, he says, "I 
have heard from the wise men that we are now dead, and that 



166 THE SAME IS HELD, 

the body is our sepulchre." 1 Again he says, " The prime evil 
is inborn in souls; " " it is implanted in men to sin." 2 Again, 
" The nature of mankind is greatly degenerated and depraved, 
all manner of disorders infest human nature, and men, being 
impotent, are torn in pieces by their lusts, as by so many wild 
horses." 3 He also speaks of an " evil nature," " an evil in 
nature," "a disease in nature," "a destruction of harmony in 
the soul," and much more to the same effect. Then again, 
tracing the origin of this diseased state, he says, " That in 
times past, the divine nature flourished in men ; but, at length, 
being mixed with mortal custom, it fell into ruin ; hence an 
inundation of evils in the race." 4 Again, " The cause of 
corruption is from our parents, so that we never relinquish their 
evil way, or escape the blemish of their evil habit." 5 

Inquiring now for the remedy which is able to restore and 
re-establish the virtue lost, he discusses at large the question, 
whether virtue can be taught, and deliberately concludes that 
it can be produced by no mere teaching. He says, " If, in this 
whole disputation, we have rightly conceived the case, virtue is 
acquired, neither by nature's force, nor by any institutes of 
discipline or teaching, but it comes to those that have it, by a 
certain divine appointment [or inspiration], over and above the 
mind's own force or exertion." 6 He also adds that, if we 
could be dressed up into a show of virtue by teaching, it would 
be the same as "to be adorned with a shadow, whereas virtue 
is a thing real and solid," — rooted, that is, in the heart's in- 
most life. The same conviction is expressed in a different 
form when he says, " That after the golden age, the universe, 
by reason of that confusion that came upon it, would have been 
quite dissolved, had not God again taken it upon him to sit at 
the helm and govern the world, and restore its disordered and 
almost disjointed parts to their primeval order." 7 And accor- 
dantly with such a conviction, he recommends a faith in divine 
help and supernatural guidance, and says, " He who prayeth to 
God, and trusteth in His good favour, shall do well." 8 Again, 
" God is the beginning and end of all being, and whoever 
follows His guidance shall be happy." 9 And that he means, 
by this, to commend a faith in supernatural aid, is evident 

1 Gorgias, fol. 403. 4 Critias, p. 400. 7 Politicus, 251. 

2 Leg. p. 731. 5 Timcsus, 103. 8 Epinom. 980. 
s Politicus, p. 274. 6 Meno. 89. $ Leg. 715. 



EVEN BY THE WISEST HEATHENS. 167 

when he says, in his Timaeus, " That beatitude, or spiritual 
liberty, is only to have the demon," that is, the good spirit, 
" dwelling in us," alluding probably to the remarkable declara- 
tion of his teacher Socrates, " that a certain demon, or good 
spirit, had followed him even from his childhood, with his good 
suggestion or influence, signifying what he should do." 1 He 
brings in Socrates also maintaining this remarkable dialogue 
with his pupil Alcibiades : "Dost thou know by what means 
thou may est avoid the inordinate motions of thy mind ? " He 
answers, " Yes." Soc. " How ?" Al. " If thou wilt, Socrates." 
Soc. "Thou speakest not rightly." Al. "How then must I 
speak ?" Soc. " Say, if God will," 2 etc. 

Here, then, we have a man rising up out of heathenism, one 
of the greatest of mankind, testifying his conviction of the 
disability and ruin of human nature, and his confidence in some 
supernatural aid, as the only hope of the world — all this 
instructed by his own consciousness, and by so many years of 
philosophic study, in the great problem of humanity and human 
progress. For no teacher, even of our modern time, is more 
intent on the possibility of some better ideal state of the world 
and society than he. In this problem, indeed, it may even be 
said that he wore out his life. 

Seneca speaks quite despairingly of our possible recovery by 
any means. He says, " Our corrupt nature has drunk in such 
deep draughts of iniquity, which are so far incorporated in its 
very bowels, that you cannot remove it, save by tearing them 
out." And yet he conceives, in the faintest manner, some 
possibility of supernatural aid. " No man is able to clear him- 
self, let some one give him a hand, let some one lead him out " 8 
— as if asking for some Christ unknown, to come and bring the 
soul forth from its thraldom. 

He also says, as if he were writing out another seventh chap- 
ter of the Romans, "What is it, Lucilius, that, when we set 
ourselves in one way, draws us another, and when we desire to 
avoid any course, drives us into it ? What is it that so wrestles 
with our mind, allowing us never to settle any good resolution 
once for all?" 4 

And Ovid also joins in the same confession — " If I could, I 
would be more sane. But some unknown force drags me 
against my will. Desire draws me one way, conviction another. 

1 Theages, 128. 8 Alcib. 135. 3 Ep. 52. * Ep. 52. 



168 OPPRESSED BY THE UNCERTAINTIES OF TRUTH. 

I see the better and approve, the worse I follow." 1 " 
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver ?" is the sigh that 
interprets and fitly concludes their confession. 

Passages in great number could be cited from other ancient 
writers, in which they express the same conviction, that man 
can never be raised out of his sin by any mere natural force. 
But these are points of opinion. We prefer to add, as being 
more significant, some illustrations also of the practical longing 
they had for the appearance of some divine helper, and the 
manifestation of God in some gracious revelation of His presence. 
In illustrations of this kind, we shall see exactly what would 
be our own condition, if these supernatural manifestations, 
denied by so many in our times, were taken away, and we were 
really set back, as we require ourselves to be, in the proper 
darkness of nature. It was a continual source of misery to the 
most enlightened of the pagan scholars, and philosophers, that 
whatever they seemed to discover, or to establish by the light 
of natural reason, was yet never discovered, never established, 
but was still overhung by a cloud of uncertainty. Thus we 
hear Xenophanes closing off his work on nature, in these words 
— "No man has discovered any certainty, nor will discover it, 
concerning the gods, and what I say of the universe. For if 
he uttered what is even most perfect, still he does not know it, 
but conjecture hangs over all." 

Oppressed by this feeling of uncertainty, they were only 
goaded the more painfully in their search after the real mean- 
ing of life, and waited, with a longing only the more hungry, 
for some revelation of divine things, if haply it might some 
time be given. Thus Plato, speaking in his Phaedo of the soul 
and its destiny, says — "It appears to me that to know them 
clearly in the present life is either impossible or very difficult ; 
on the other hand, not to test what has been said of them in 
every possible way, not to investigate the whole matter, and 
exhaust upon it every effort, is the part of a very weak man. 
For we ought, in respect to these things, either to learn from 
others how they stand, or to discover them for ourselves ; or, 
if both these are impossible, then, taking the best of human 
reasonings, that which appears the best supported, and em- 
barking on that, as one who risks himself on a raft, so to sail 
through life — unless one could be carried more safely, or with 

1 Metam. vii. 18. 



LONGING FOR A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 169 

less risk, on a secret conveyance or some Divine Logos." 
What a condition of hunger for knowledge ! — a great and 
mighty soul, prying at the gates of life, to force them open, 
catching the faintest gleams of truth or opinion, and committing 
his all tenderly to them as to a slender raft upon the sea, only 
venting, with a sigh, the mysterious hint of a Divine Logos, 
who will possibly come to him within, and he a surer light, a 
safer guide. And this dim hint of a better revelation is ven- 
tured more boldly in his Alcibiades, when he says — " We must 
wait patiently until some one, either a god or some inspired 
man, teach us our moral and religious duties, and, as Pallas in 
Homer did to Diomede, remove the darkness from our eyes." 
How little incredible was it to him, the highest philosophic in- 
tellect the world has ever seen, that some incarnate messenger 
of God, or teacher supernaturally sent, may some time come to 
enlighten the world ! What in fact does he tell us, but that 
he is waiting for Jesus the Christ ! 

At a later period, or about the time of Christ, when the 
faith of the ancient religion or mythology had become more 
nearly extinct, the struggle of souls, shut up to the mere dark- 
ness of nature and reason, became more sad and painful. 
Strabo, for example, falling back on the religion of Moses, re- 
ceived from him a faith in one Supreme Essence, who he 
thought should be worshipped without images in sacred groves ; 
and there, he said, ''the devout should lay themselves down to 
sleep, and expect signs from God in dreams." x Not daring to 
look for any waking experience of God supernaturally revealed 
in the soul, he must still indulge the hope that the Eternal 
will, at least, come to it in the land of sleep and dreams. 
Poor Pliny, confessing too the wretched hunger of his soul, saw 
no relief to it better than suicide. " It is difficult," he writes, 
"to say whether it might not be better for men to be wholly 
without religion, than to have one of this kind [viz., that of 
his country], which is a reproach to its object. The vanity of 
man, and his insatiable longing after existence, have led him 
also to dream of a life after death. A being full of contra- 
dictions, he is the most wretched of creatures, since the other 
creatures have no wants transcending the bounds of their 
nature. Man is full of desires and wants that reach to infinity, 
and can never be satisfied. Among these so great evils, the 

1 Lib. xvi. chap. 2. 



170 IN ALL WHICH THEY ARE 

best thing God has bestowed on man is the power to take his 
own life." x Scarcely less sad is the desperation of the pagan 
Cecilius, represented in the dialogue of Minutius Felix, as 
maintaining that, without any reasonable evidence for the old 
religion, they must yet cling to it as a tradition ; for he felt 
that they must have some semblance of a religion, some opinion 
of a supernatural care and a converse of Deity with men. 
"How much better is it," he said, "to receive just what our 
fathers have told us, to worship the gods they taught us to 
reverence, even before we could have any true knowledge of 
them, to allow ourselves no right of private judgment ; but to 
believe our ancestors, who, in the infancy of mankind, near the 
birth of the world, were even considered worthy of having the 
gods for their friends." "What a strait is this for an intelligent 
being to be in — holding fast, by his will, upon the belief of a 
supernatural approach of the gods, in times gone by, without 
any present evidence ! 

It is a very fine thing for many, saturated as they are with 
Christian truth, and all but oppressed with the evidences of a 
new creating grace and gospel, to invent speculative difficulties, 
and finally take it up as wisdom or the better reason, to believe 
in nothing but mere nature and her laws. But the recoil of 
the soul from such negations will come after, and it will be 
terrible quite beyond their conception. We see this in the 
facts just stated, and yet more affectingly in the history of 
Clement the Roman, and of his conversion. He tells how he 
was harassed from his childhood, by questions which paganism 
could not help him to answer ; such as relate to his being and 
immortality, the origin of the world and its continuance, when 
it began, when it will end, and whither his present life is to 
carry him. " Incessantly haunted," he says, " by such thoughts 
as these, which came I knew not whence, I was sorely troubled, 
so that I grew pale and emaciated. ... I resorted to 
the schools of the philosophers, hoping to find some certain 
foundation. I saw nothing but the piling up and tearing down 
of theories. Thus was I driven to and fro, by the different 
representations, and forced to conclude that things appear, not 
as they are in themselves, but as they happen to be presented on 
this or that side. I was made dizzier than ever, and, from the 
bottom of my heart, sighed for deliverance." 2 Then he tells 

J Hist, Nat. lib. vii. 2 Neander's Hist. vol. i. pp. 32, 33. 



WITNESSES FOR CHRIST. 171 

how he resolved to visit Egypt, the land of mysteries and appa- 
ritions, there to hunt up some magician who could summon a 
spirit for him from the other world ; for he thought, if he could 
see a spirit, that would settle the question of immortality, and 
give him a fixed point of truth. But in this unhappy state, in- 
quiring, distressed, agitated, he fell in with a Christian gospel, 
heard it preached, there discovered what his soul had been 
aching so long and bitterly to find, and there he found rest. 

These illustrations from history show us most effectually how 
little of true science there is, after all, in those who boast the 
laws of progress, or a gospel of self-cultivation, as more rational 
and hopeful than a gospel of faith. After all, they may see that, 
when left to the proper darkness of nature, it is no such rational 
and luminous state as they thought, but a night of gloom, a 
longing vacancy, a hunger insupportable. Nature has no 
promise for society, least of all any remedy for sin. 



in IHE SUPERNATURAL 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SUPEENATUKAL COMPATIBLE WITH NATUEE AND SUBJECT 
TO FIXED LAWS. 

If, as we have shown, there is no hope for man, or human 
society, under sin, save in the supernatural interposition of God, 
we are led to inquire, in the next place, what rational objection 
there may he to such an interposition ? And we find two 
objections alleged. First, That any such interference of super- 
natural agency is incompatible with the order of nature. 
Secondly, That the supernatural agency supposed is itself dis- 
pensed without law, and contrary, in that view, to reason. Of 
these I will speak in their order. And — 

I. I undertake to show that the supernatural divine agency, 
required to provide an efficacious remedy for sin, is wholly com- 
patible with nature ; involving no breach of her laws, or dis- 
turbance of their systematic action. 

I have already shown that nature is not, in any proper and 
complete sense, the system of God, but is in fact a subordinate 
member only, of a higher and virtually supernatural system, to 
whose uses it is subject. It is, in fact, a Thing ; while the 
real kingdom of God is a kingdom of Powers, Himself the 
Eegal Power. Both He and they are continually using the 
Thing, and pouring their activity into it, as the medial point 
of their relationship ; and this in a way we now propose to 
show that is nowise incompatible with its laws ; for the very 
sufficient reason that, by these laws, it is originally submitted 
to their activity. Not even what we call the distemper and 
disorder of wrong supposes any overturning of those laws ; it 
is only a result of mischief, produced by throwing in that which 
provokes their penal consequences. In the same manner, it 



COMPATIBLE WITH NATURE. 173 

will be seen that not even miracles, wrought by a supernatural 
divine agency, necessarily imply any removal or suspension of 
such laws ; for nature is subjected by her laws, both to God's 
activity and to ours, to be thus acted on and varied in her 
operation by the new combinations or conjunctions of causes 
they are able to produce. Accordingly every result produced 
in this manner, whether by God or by men, represents nature 
supernaturally acted on, not nature overturned ; that is, it is 
natural in one view, in another supernatural ; natural as com- 
ing to pass under and by the laws of nature ; supernatural as 
coming to pass by new conjunctions of causes, which are made 
by the action of wills upon nature. 

What an immense action upon nature are we ourselves seen 
to have, as a race, when we consider the multifarious wheels 
and engines we have put at work, the heavy burdens we carry 
round the globe in our ships, the structures we raise, the culti- 
vation we practise ! We make the world, in fact, another world. 
All of which is referrible to a force supernatural in the last 
degree. Nature, unapplied or uncombined by our wills, could 
do no such thing. Wills only have this power, and wills are 
supernatural. If now we have a power so immense over the 
world, as we see in all our works and wonders of contrivance, is 
it credible that God can have no way of access to nature, no 
power at all over nature ? Is He the only will excluded from a 
sovereignty over it ? 

To illustrate this point yet farther, we will suppose a com- 
pany of youth or children engaged in playing at ball. The ball 
is an inert spherical substance that will lie on the ground for 
ever, unless it is raised by some cause out of itself, and will 
never act save as it is acted on. It has a certain tenacity 
of parts and an elastic body, but no power in itself to move. 
Nevertheless we see it flying through the air in lively play, 
smitten, caught, thrown — the central object and instrument of 
what is called a game ; that is of a social strife between the 
players. It is, for the time, a medium of commerce in the lively 
battle of its motions between so many contesting agents. But 
the motions it has in the air, we observe, represent so many 
arms throwing it by its weight or driving it by its elasticity. 
So far its play is natural only. Then, if we inquire what 
moves the arms, we discover that it is done by the sudden con- 
traction of muscles, acting under purely mechanical principles, 



174 THE SUPERNATURAL 

and this is natural. If now we push our inquiry still farther, 
asking why the muscles contracted thus and thus, we discover 
that this also happened by reason of mandates sent down to 
them on the nervous cord, which, again, was equally natural. 
But if we go still farther and ask what originated or caused the 
wills to originate the mandates, the true answer is, that it was 
the wills themselves acting by no causation, able to act or' 
not ; so that, if some one or more of the players is a truant 
from school, or from home, transgressing, in the play, a direct 
order of restriction, he will know that he is doing wrong, and 
blame himself for the wrong he does, simply because it is an 
immediate, irresistible conviction of his mind that he is im- 
pelled to his disobedience by no cause whatever. Doubtless 
he has ends, reasons, motives, but these are no causes of his 
act ; for he knows that he could and ought to have resisted 
them all. Here then we finally arrive at a power supernatural, 
moving all the hands and bats of the players. The ball is at 
one end of so many chains of causes, and the free wills of the 
players at the other. The ball would never have stirred but 
for the arms, nor these but for the contractions of the muscles, 
nor these contracted but for the mandates sent down to them, 
which mandates, in the last degree, are the peremptory acts of 
so many free wills or powers that act supernaturally from no 
causation. Just here, then, rises the question, if the play is 
thus carried on by causes which, in the last degree, are super- 
natural, is there any overturning or disorder of nature implied 
in it ? Manifestly not ; and for the simple reason that the 
bats, and arms, and hands, and muscles, are by their very laws 
subordinated, as chains of causes, to the supernatural power that 
wields them. The play is natural, therefore, as being through 
and by those subordinated agents ; and supernatural, as being 
from that power. We have no thought of a miracle in the case, 
or of any implied overturning of nature which is shocking to 
our faith. On the contrary, the event is so common, so remote 
from anything extraordinary, that we are very likely to look 
upon it as a transaction wholly in the world of natural cause 
and effect. 

We come now to the application. Nature is to God and his 
spiritual and free creatures what the ball is to the players. 
In one view, we may regard the Almighty Ruler of the world 
as the sensorium and active brain of the world; having an 



COMPATIBLE WITH NATURE. 175 

immediate power of action through every member and every 
line of causes in it ; able, in that manner, to maintain a con- 
stant living agency in its events, without really infringing its 
order, or obstructing and suspending its laws in any instance. 
Nature is pliant thus to Him, as the body of the players to 
them ; and as the natural order of their body is not violated 
by the mandates they put upon it, so there is full opportunity 
for God to do his wonders of power and redemption in the 
earth, without violating any condition of natural order and 
system whatever. His access to all the lines of causes in 
nature may be as truly normal as that which the soul has, at 
that secret point of the brain where it delivers its mandates to 
the body. 

We are speaking here, it will be observed, not of God's 
possible activity, as being the activity of nature. That is a 
different conception. What we now say is, that, supposing all 
the forces and laws of nature to continue for ever, there is also 
room for the perpetual acting of God upon the lines of causes 
in nature, doing His will supernaturally in it, or upon it, just 
as we do, and yet in perfect compatibility with the laws and 
the settled order of nature. He may as well act Himself into 
the world as we, and nature will as little be overturned by His 
action as by ours. Nor will it create any difficulty that He 
acts like Himself, and in ways proportionate to His infinite 
majesty. 

That nature is in fact submitted to His action, as to ours, in 
the manner supposed, is evident from the report of science it- 
self. For when the geologists show that new races of animal 
and vegetable life have taken a beginning, at successive points 
in the history of the creation, that whole realms of living 
creatures disappear again and again, to be succeeded by others 
fresh from the hand of God, what does it signify but that the 
atoms and elemental forces of nature are so related to God 
that they do, by their own laws, submit themselves to His will, 
flowing into new combinations, and composing thus new germs 
of life ? These successive repopulations of the rocks were not 
produced by so many overturnings of nature — that is too ex- 
travagant for belief, and stands in no harmony with what we 
know of God. On the contrary, every element of force and 
every atom of matter concerned in these new births of life was 
acting, we are to believe, in its moment of new combination, 



176 NATURE IS ADJUSTED 

precisely as, according to its inherent properties and laws, it 
ever had done and ever will do. It was only instigated by a 
divine force not in its natural laws ; and in the quickening of 
that yielding itself up, by these laws, to organize and live. 
Nor was the visitation of Mary, glorious and sacred as the 
mystery was, a transaction at all different in principle, or one 
that involved, in fact, any violation of nature not involved in 
the other just named. So also when we discover the world, or 
human race, groaning under the penal disorders and bondage of 
sin, the deliverance of those disorders by a supernatural power 
involves no overturning of the causes at work, or the laws by 
which they work, but only that these causes are, by their laws, 
submitted to the will and supernatural action of God, so that 
He can arrange new conjunctions, and accomplish, in that man- 
ner, results of deliverance. Indeed, a physician does precisely 
the same thing in principle, when, appealing as he thinks to 
the laws of substances, he brings them into combinations that 
are from himself, and places them in connexions to exert a 
healing force. 

It will further assist our conceptions and modify our impres- 
sions of this subject, if we inquire briefly into the office and 
probable use of what is called nature. That nature is not 
appointed as any final end of God, we have before shown. It 
is only ordained, as we then intimated, to be played upon 
by the powers ; that is, by God Himself and all free agents 
under Him. Instead of being the veritable system or universe 
of God, as in our sensuality or scientific conceit we make it, 
we may call it more truly the ball or medial substance occupied 
by so many players ; that is, by the spiritual universe under 
God as the Lord of Hosts. There could be no commerce of so 
many players in the game referred to, without some medium or 
medial instrument ; and the instrument needed to be a constant, 
invariable substance, as regards shape, weight, size, elasticity, 
inertia, and all the natural properties pertaining to it. If the 
ball changed weight, colour, density, shape every moment, no 
skill could be acquired or evinced in the use of it ; there would 
be no real test in the game, and no social commerce of play in 
the parties using it. Therefore it needed to be, so far, a con- 
stant quantity. So, demonstrably, there needs to be, between 
us and God, and between us and one another, some constant 
quantity, so that we can act upon each other, trace the effects 



TO RECEIVE THE SUPERNATURAL. 177 

of our practice and that of others, learn the mind of God, the 
misery and baseness of wrong, the worth of principles, and the 
blessedness of virtue, from what we experience ; attaining 
thus to such a degree of wisdom, that we can set our life on a 
footing of success and divine approbation. "What we call 
nature is this constant quantity interposed between us and God, 
and between us and each other — the great ball, in using which, 
our life battle is played. Or, considering the grand immensity of 
planetary worlds, careering through the fields of light, all these, 
we may say, rolling eternally onward in their rounds of order, 
bearing their wondrous furniture with them, such as science 
discovers, and weaving their interminable lines of causes, 
are the ball of exercise, in which, and by which, God is training 
and teaching the spiritual hosts of His empire. They are set 
in a system of immutable order and constancy for this reason ; 
but with the design, beforehand, that all the free beings or 
powers shall play their activity on them and into them, and that 
He, too, by the free insertion of His, may turn them about by 
His counsel, and so make Himself and His counsel open to the 
commerce of His children. 

So far, therefore, from discovering anything undignified or 
superstitious in the admission of a supernatural agency and 
government of God in the world, it is, in fact, the only worthy 
and exalted conception. It no more humbles the world or de- 
ranges the scientific order of it to let God act upon it, than 
to let man do the same ; as we certainly know that he does, 
without any thought of overturning its laws. On the other 
hand, to imagine, in the way of dignifying the world, that God 
must let it alone and simply see it go, is only to confess that 
it was made for no such glorious intent as we have supposed. 

To serve this intent, two things manifestly are wanted, and 
one as truly as the other; viz., nature and the supernatural, 
an invariable, scientific order, and a pliant submission of that 
order to the sovereignty and uses of wills, human and divine, 
without any infringement of its constancy. For if nature were 
to be violated and tossed about by capricious overturnings of her 
laws, there would be an end of all confidence and exact intelli- 
gence. And if it could not be used, or set in new conjunctions, 
by God and his children, it would be a wall, a catacomb, and 
nothing more. And yet this latter is the world of scientific 
naturalism — a world that might well enough answer for the 



178 NO RESTRICTION, THEREFORE, 

housing of manakins, but not for the exercise of living men. 
It would seem to be enough to for ever dissipate any such un- 
believing tendencies, simply to have caught, for once, the differ- 
ence between the constancy of causes separated from uses, and 
the constancy of causes limbered and subjected to the uses of 
eternal freedom and intelligence. That is the world of causa- 
tion, this of religion ; that a dumb-bell exercise for arms that 
are dumb-bells themselves, this a living order, set in the contact 
and consecrated to the uses of spirit ; that a world as being a 
world, this is a grand gymnasium of powers whom God is train- 
ing for society and commerce with Himself. 

Furthermore, it is plain that, if there is no supernatural 
agency of God permissible or credible in the world, then there 
is practically no government over it. It makes no difference, 
touching the point here in question, whether we regard nature 
as being literally a machine, wound up to run by its own causes 
apart from God, or whether we regard the causes and laws as 
being themselves the immediate action of God, always present 
to them and in them. For if He is present thus, only as the 
soul of its causes or the will operating in its laws, then that 
presence, if restricted, as naturalism requires, to the mere run 
of nature, and allowed no liberty of help in the disorders of 
evil, is scarcely better than the presence of Ixion at his wheel. 
If we speak of God, the Almighty, He is a being mortgaged for 
eternity to the round of nature ; a grim idol for science to 
worship, but no Father to weakness or Redeemer to faith. 

Or if we imagine that God has so planned the world of nature 
that, running on by its own inherent laws and causes, it will 
always, by a pre-established harmony, bring just the events to 
pass that are wanted ; soothe the sorrows, comfort the re- 
pentances, hear the prayers, redress the wrongs, chastise the 
crimes of his subjects ; still it is with our faith practically as 
if it were living in a mill, and not as if it were concerned, houi 
by hour, with the living God. God is really not accessible. 
We have access only to the mill we are in, with joy to feel it 
running ! There is no such reciprocity between us and God as 
to answer the wants of our hearts, or the necessities of our moral 
training. 

Besides, if it be maintained that nature is the proper uni 
verse of God, and that no conception is admissible of powers 
outside of nature acting upon it to vary the action it would 



UPON GOD'S LIBERTY. 179 

otherwise have by itself, then follows the very shocking conse- 
quence that, since the creation, God has had and can hereafter 
have no work of liberty to do. Nature is His monument; and 
not His garment. Not only are miracles out of the question, 
but counsel and action also. He is under a scientific embargo, 
neither hearing nor helping His children, nor indeed giving any 
signs of recognition. And the reason is worse, if possible, and 
more chilling than the fact, viz., that if He should stir, He 
would move something that science requires to be let alone ! 
A great many Christians are confused and chilled by a difficulty 
resembled to this feeling, when they go to God in worship or 
prayer, that nothing can reasonably be expected of Him, because 
reason allows Him to do nothing. It is as if He were one of 
those spent meteors to which the Indians offer sacrifice — a hard, 
cold rock of iron, which they worship for the noise it made a 
long time ago, when it fell from the sky, and not because it is 
likely ever to make even a noise again. 

Just here, the view we are advancing is seen to have an im- 
mense practical as well as speculative consequence. It finds 
how to conceive God in a state of as great activity now as He 
was when He made the world — always active from eternity to 
eternity. Every work of His hand is pliant still to His counsel. 
He is doing something, able to do all we want. In all events 
and changes He has a present concern. He turns about not the 
clouds only, but all the wheels of nature, by His ever-living 
power and government. He is an Agent, as much more real 
than Nature, as He is wider in his reach and more sovereign. 
He can produce variant results through invariable causes, and 
so can make the world of things keep company with the vari- 
ant demands of want, weakness, wickedness, and merit ; of love, 
truth, justice, and holy supplication, in His children. It is no 
longer as if, at some given point in the solitude of His eternity, 
He waked up and created the worlds, since which time He has 
neither done nor can ever be expected to do anything more, 
because it is the right now of the laws of nature to do every- 
thing uninterrupted. Contrary to this, He is the Living God, 
and can as readily meet us and bend Himself and His works to 
our condition or request, as a man, without any infringement of 
his body can bend it to his uses. Nature is seen to be subjected 
to His constant agency by its laws themselves, which laws He 
has never to suspend, but only to employ, having the great 



180 THE SUPERNATURAL DISPENSED BY FIXED LAWS. 

realm of nature flexible as a hand to His will for ever. Now He 
is no more fenced away from us by nature, no more closeted be- 
hind it, to sleep away his deaf and idle eternity ; but He is with 
us and about us, filling all things with His potent energy and 
fatherly counsel. He maintains a relationship as real and 
practical with us as we have with each other. 

II. I undertake, in opposition to the objection which sup- 
poses that the supernatural agency of God is itself subject to no 
law or system, to show that it is regulated and dispensed by 
immutable and fixed laws. As intelligent creatures, we can 
have no comfort under a condition ruled by no law or system, 
and conformed to no principles of intelligence. We instinctively 
demand that everything in God's plan shall stand in the strict 
unity of reason, even as the old astronomers strive to com- 
prehend the heavenly bodies and their motions, in the figures of 
geometry and the fixed proportions of arithmetic. This high 
instinct of our nature, God, we may be sure, will never violate. 

1. Since God has inserted in our nature this instinctive 
opinion of law, as necessary to the honour of His government, 
and the comfort of our reason under it, we have, in the fact, a 
very certain proof that His government will be such as to meet 
our respect, and satisfy the yearnings of our intelligence. 

2. The fact that nature is a realm, organized under fixed 
laws, is itself the best and most satisfactory evidence that such 
is the manner of God also in things supernatural. Who that 
simply looks on the heavenly worlds, for example, can suffer a 
doubt afterward, that God will do everything in terms of law 
and strict systematic unity. 

3. Since God is the sovereign intelligence, the Perfect Reason, 
He will Himself have an affinity for law and systematic unity, 
as much stronger than we, as He is higher in order than we, 
and broader in the comprehension of His understanding. Hence 
it is impossible to believe that in anything, even the smallest, 
He will deviate from rules of universal application — least of all 
in the highest order of His works, even such as He displays in 
the grace of our redemption. 

4. The moral and religious need we have of such a faith 
makes it indispensable. To let go of such a faith, or lose it, is 
to plunge at once into superstition. If any Christian, the most 
devout, believes in a miracle, or a providence that is done out- 
side of all system and law, he is so far on the way to polytheism. 



THEKE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LAWS. 181 

The unity of God always perishes when the unity of order and 
law is lost. And we may as well believe in one God acting on 
or against another, as in the same God acting outside of all fixed 
laws and terms of immutable order. Indeed, I suppose it was 
in just this way that polytheism began. The transition is easy 
and natural, from a superstitious belief in one God who acts 
without system, to a belief in many who will much more 
naturally do the same. 

But the main difficulty here is not to establish a reasonable 
conviction that the supernatural works of God must be dis- 
pensed by fixed laws ; it is to find how this may be, or be 
intelligently conceived. And here lies the main stress of our 
present inquiry. 

To open the way, then, to a just and clear conception of the 
great fact stated, it will be necessary to enter into some im- 
portant distinctions concerning law, or what is properly meant 
by the word law. 

The word is used with many varieties of meaning, but always, 
and in all its varieties, having one element that is constant, 
viz., the opinion had of its uniformity; as that, in exactly the 
same circumstances, it will always and for ever do, bring to pass, 
direct, or command precisely the same thing. Without this no 
law is ever regarded as a law. 

Observing this fundamental fact, we notice the distinction 
next of natural and moral law. Natural law is the law by 
which any kind of being or thing is made to act invariably, thus 
or thus, in virtue of terms inherent in itself; as when any body 
of matter gravitates by reason of its matter, and according to 
the quantity of its matter. 

Moral law pertains never to a thing, or to any substance in 
the chain of cause and effect, but only to a free intelligence, or 
self-active power. Its rule is authority, not force. It com- 
mands, but does not actuate or determine. It speaks to assent 
or choice, inviting action, but operating nothing apart from 
choice. It imposes obligation, leaving the subject to obey or 
not, clear of any enforcement, save that of conviction before- 
hand, and penalty afterward. 

It will be seen at once that God's supernatural works in 
Christ and the Spirit are not reducible under either of these 
two kinds of law, the natural or the moral. To a certain ex- 
tent, God's nature will be a law to His action, even as ours is 



182 DIFFERENT ORDERS OF LAWS. 

a necessary law to us. Thus, if we are intelligent, our intelli- 
gent nature will manifest effects of intelligence. If we form 
necessary ideas of figure, space, time, truth, right, justice, there 
will be something in our action, that reveals these ideas. In 
like manner, if we are free agents, it is made impossible for us, 
by a fixed law of nature, to act as mere things, under the law 
of cause and effect. So, if God is infinite in His nature, then 
it is a fixed law of His nature that he shall indicate infinity in 
His action, and if He has geometric ideas, that His works shall, 
by a necessary consequence, have some fixed relation to the 
laws of geometry ; such as we discover in the spheres, and 
orbits, and projectile curves, and in the subtle triangulations of 
light. Thus it is rightly affirmed by the great Hooker, that 
" the being of God is a kind of law to His working." 1 And 
so far does he carry this opinion as to hint the probable neces- 
sity that God, being both one and three, an essential unity and 
a threefold personality, there will, of course, be something in His 
works correspondent with His nature. 

So again, if we speak of the law moral, that is a law as com- 
pletely sovereign over God as it is over us. It is the eternal, 
necessary law of right or of love ; a law that He acknowledges 
with a ready and full assent for ever ; that which determines 
the immutable order, and purity, and glory of His character. 
And then, of course, the law accepted in His own character 
will be a law published to his subjects to be the rule of 
theirs. Moral law then, by the free consent of God, shapes the 
divine character, and so the character and ends of his govern- 
ment. 

But though natural law and moral law have much to do, as 
here discovered, in determining and moulding all the conduct of 
God, we do not immediately conceive what is meant by the fact, 
that the supernatural works of God are dispensed by fixed laws, 
till we bring into view a third kind of law, viz., the law of 
one's end, or the law which one's reason imposes in the way of 
attaining his end. Moral law, we have said, shapes the char- 
acter of God, and that determines His end. Since he is a 
morally perfect being in His character, moral perfection or holi- 
ness will be the last end of His being, that for which He creates 
and rules ; for, if He were to value holiness only as the means 
of some other end, such as happiness, then He would even dis- 

1 Ecclesiastical Polity, vol. i. p. 72 



GOD'S LAWS, IN THE SUPERNATURAL, 183 

respect holiness, rating it only as a convenience ; which is not 
the character of a holy being, but only an imposture in the 
name of such a character. Regarding holiness, then, as God's 
last end, His world-plan will be gathered round the end proposed, 
to fulfil it, and all His counsels will crystallize into order and 
system, subject to that end. For this nature will exist, in all 
her vast machinery of causes and laws ; to this all the miracles 
and supernatural works of redemption will bring their contribu- 
tions. Having this for His end, and the supernatural as means 
to His end, the divine reason will of course order all under fixed 
laws of reason, which laws will be so exact and universal as to 
make a perfect system. 

How this may result we can see from a simple reference to 
ourselves. Thus, if a man undertakes to be honest, having that 
for an end, then it will be seen that his end so far becomes a 
law to all his actions ; that is, a law self-imposed, one which 
his reason prescribes, and which, in accepting his end, he freely 
accepts. So if a man's end is to be rich, we shall see that his 
end is a law to his whole life-plan, or at least so far a law that 
it fails only where his reason or judgment falls short of a per- 
fect perception. Or we may take a case more exact and pal- 
pable, the case of a player at the game of chess. The end he 
proposes is to win the game, and that end, subordinating his 
reason or skill, will become a law to every move he makes on 
the diagram, except where his skill is at fault, or his under- 
standing short of comprehension. If now we suppose him to 
be gifted with a perfect skill or an all-perceiving reason, it will 
result that every move made will be determined with such ex- 
actness and uniformity, that, if he were to play the game over 
a million of times, he would never in a single case move diifer- 
ently in exactly the same circumstances. 

Here, then, is what we mean by affirming that all God's 
supernatural acts, providences, and works, supernatural though 
they be, will yet be dispensed in all cases by immutable, uni- 
versal, and fixed laws. It will be so because His end never 
varies, and His reason is perfect. Therefore His world-plan, 
though comprehending the supernatural, will be an exact and 
perfect system of order, centered in the eternal unity of reason 
about His last end. There will be nothing desultory in it, 
nothing irregular, nothing so particular as to happen apart from 
rule and universal counsel. The order of the heavens, and the 



18 1 ARE SHAPED BY HIS ENDS. 

angles of the light will not be more perfect, because the reason 
of the supernatural is equally precise and clear. The same 
work will always be done in the same circumstances, without a 
semblance of variation. Even as the dial, under the laws of 
nature, will make the same . shadow, at the same hour, for an 
eternal succession of days, so the good gift and perfect from 
above will come down from the Father of lights, punctual and 
true in its order, as from one whose counsel is perfect, and with 
whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Order, 
everlasting order, reigns where least we look for it, and where 
the unthinking and crude mind of superstition would deem it 
even a merit that God had broken loose from His eternity of 
law to bless the world at will. 

But how is it conceivable, some one may ask, that such 
works as are comprehended in the range of human redemption 
should take place systematically under fixed laws ? To this we 
answer, that it is not necessary to such a conviction that we 
should be able to conceive how these operate, or what they are. 
All we need is to find the possible and probable fact ; which 
having found, we can as little doubt or dismiss the conviction 
of some presiding law as we can the faith of universal laws in 
nature, where we do not know the laws or cannot discover the 
secret of their action. For example, we know in general what 
is the law of miracles, viz., that they are wrought as attesta- 
tions of a Divine mission in those by whom they are wrought ; 
but their particular occasions, times, and properties, why 
wrought by this and not by another, why at one time, or in one 
age, and not in succeeding ages, we may not be able to discover. 
The law is beyond our investigation, but that there is a law, 
and that exactly the same miracles will be wrought, if wrought 
at all, in exactly the same conditions or spiritual connexions, 
even to eternity, we have no more room to doubt than we have 
to question God's intelligence. For if God's end is the same, 
He can never deviate or omit to do exactly the same things in 
exactly the same circumstances, without some defect of intelli- 
gence. Either now or before He must confess to a mistake. If 
He is perfect in wisdom now, He was not then ; if then, He is 
not now. But when we say " exactly the same circumstances," 
it is important for us to notice the extent of the qualification ; 
for this will bring into view a great principle of distinction 
between the natural and the supernatural, apart from which the 



WITH ETERNAL UNIFORMITY, 185 

extraordinary and apparently desultory manifestations of the 
latter cannot be understood. Nature is a machine, compounded 
of wheels and moved by steady powers. Hence it goes in 
rounds or cycles, returning again and again into itself, produc- 
ing thus seasons, months, and years ; repeating its dews, and 
showers, and storms, and varied temperatures ; in the same 
circumstances or times, doing much the same things. But it is 
not so in the affairs of a mind, a society, or 'an age. There the 
motion is never in circles, but onward, eternally onward. 
Nothing is ever repeated. No mind or spirit can reproduce a 
yesterday. No age, the age or even year that is past. The 
combinations of circumstances may have a certain analogy, but 
they are never the same, or even nearly so. If they are near 
enough to require a repetition by the Saviour of His miracle of 
the loaves, they will yet be so far different as to require a dif- 
ference in the miracle. And where the outward conditions 
appear to be exactly the same, the inward states and spiritual 
connexions may be so various as to take away all resemblance ; 
requiring Paul to raise a Publius out of his fever at Malta, and 
leave a Trophimus sick at Miletum. We have no argument 
against uniformity and law in such diversities, for in reality 
there is no recurrence of circumstances and conditions such as 
at first view might be supposed. So if miracles appear in one 
age and not in another, it is because the world is moving on in 
a right line, reproducing no conditions and circumstances of the 
past, but, by conditions always new, is demanding a treatment 
correspondently new. Hence, while the course of nature is a 
round of repetitions, the course of the supernatural repeats 
nothing, and for that reason takes an aspect of variety that 
appears even to exclude the fact of law. But it is so only in 
appearance. God's perfect wisdom still requires the same 
things to be done in the same circumstances, and, when not the 
same, as nearly the same as the circumstances are nearly 
resembled. Everything transpires in the uniformity of law. 

Thus we may assert as confidently, as if it occurred a hun- 
dred times a day, that a supernatural event, never known to 
occur but once, takes place under an immutable and really 
universal law ; such, for example, as the great, world-astound- 
ing miracle of the incarnation. In exactly the same conditions, 
if they were to occur a million of times in the universe (which 
may or may not be a violent supposition), precisely the same 



186 THEY ARE OFTEN AS WELL KNOWN 

miracle also would recur, and that with as great certainty as 
the natural law of gravity will cause a stone to fall, when for 
the millionth time its support is taken away. Living here 
upon this ant-hill, which we call the world, and seeing only the 
yard of space and the day of time our field occupies, we are 
likely to judge that an event which never occurred but once 
since the world began must be an event apart from all order 
and system ; even as a savage, but a little more childish than 
we, might imagine that some new deity is breaking into the 
world when he sees the air-stone fall, because he never saw the 
like before. Indeed, we have only to look into the appearings 
of the Jehovah angel, previous to the incarnate appearing of 
the Word, noting all the approaches and gradual preparations 
of the event, to see how certainly God has a way and a law for 
it, and will not bring it to pass till the law decrees it and the 
fulness of time is come. Could we look into the history, too, 
of the innumerable other worlds God has comprehended in His 
reign, what a lesson might we thence derive from events 
counterpart to this of the incarnation, varied only to meet the 
varied conditions of their want, character, and destiny. Though 
we may not be able, creatures of a day, to unfold the law of 
this grand miracle, and reduce it to a formula of science, how 
little reason have we in our inability to question the fact of 
such a law ? 

Besides, it is a fact that the laws of a great many of God's 
supernatural works are made known or discovered to us. Thus 
God dispenses the Holy Spirit by fixed laws. Prayer, also, is 
heard by laws as definite as the laws of equilibrium in forces. 
And what is called the doctrine of the Spirit and the doctrine 
of prayer, as given in the Scriptures, is, in fact, nothing more 
nor less than the unfolding to us, if we could so regard it, of the 
laws of the Spirit and the laws of prayer, as pertaining to the 
supernatural kingdom of God. Indeed, there is wanting now 
for the more intelligent guidance of Christian disciples to con- 
solidate their faith and save them from the extravagancies of 
fanaticism, a practical treatise on the laws of prayer, of spiritual 
gifts, and of the dispensation of the Holy Spirit generally, 
These two great powers, the hearing of prayer and the dispens- 
ing of the Spirit, are like the waterfalls and winds of nature, 
to which we set our wheels and lift our sails, and so by their 
known laws take advantage of their efficacy. A crystal or 



AS THE LAWS OF NATURE. 187 

gem that is being distilled and shaped in the secret depths of 
the world, is not shaped by laws as well understood as the law 
of the Spirit of life when it moulds the secret order and beauty 
of a soul. 

Our conclusion therefore is, that all God's works, even such 
as are most distinctly supernatural, are determined by fixed 
laws. This is true of all supernatural events, with the single 
exception of the bad and wicked actions of men. And these 
are out of all terms of law, not because they are supernatural, 
but only because they are bad. Indeed, it is a somewhat 
singular and even curious fact, that while so great jealousy is 
felt in our time of miracles and all immediate spiritual opera- 
tions of God, as being so many violations of order and fixed 
law in the universe, the only known events in the world, of 
which that is really true, are the bad actions of bad men, or of 
bad spirits generally. These are not subject to any fixed laws ; 
they consent to no law. They are determined neither by the 
laws of causality, nor by the laws of a good end ; which are laws 
of reason, truth, and beneficence. They have no agreement 
with the world, or with God, or even with the constituent well- 
being of the doers themselves. All that can be apprehended of 
miracles is true of them, and even more. Their damning 
miracle is everywhere, and the confusion they make is real. 
If those persons who are so ready to apprehend some destruc- 
tion, or implied destruction of law in the faith of miracles, would 
turn their thoughts upon these real disorders, and conceive 
them as the only known facts in our world that have no subjec- 
tion to law, they would have a good point of beginning for the 
cure of their scepticism generally. 

It cannot be necessary to pursue this topic farther. But it 
may be well to notice, before we drop the subject, one or two 
false impressions very commonly entertained by the natural 
philosophers and poets of nature, whose scepticism is oftener 
grounded in such impressions than in formal arguments. They 
are greatly impressed by the immutable reign of order and law 
in nature, deeming it the highest point of sublimity, in all the 
known manifestations of God. Not seldom, indeed, is this 
point magnified by them, in terms of admiration, that reflect a 
certain contempt on the Christian ideas of God ; as if it were 
possible only to an over-easy credulity, to imagine that God will 



188 GOD'S HIGHEST WORK IS NOT 

descend from His high position of law to do such things as the 
preaching and praying disciples of Christianity expect of Him. 
Gazing into the sky, and beholding the eternal, changeless roll 
of the worlds, every orb in the track, where the astrologers of 
Babylon and Egypt saw it long ages ago, never to vary or falter 
in the longer ages to come — image, how sublime, they exclaim, 
of the divine greatness ! Greater and sublimer still, that the 
same undeviating rule of law is equally conspicuous in the 
smallest things ; that in every salt and pebble there is a little 
astronomy of atoms whose laws are as old as the stars, and 
whose constancy is a reflection of theirs ! No, the wonder of 
God's way is not here, but it is that He can make constancy 
flexible to so many myriads of uses, and the uses themselves — 
all but the abuses — a system of order and law as complete and 
perfect as that of the stars. Constancy, as a mere post or 
position, has no dignity. The true dignity and miracle of order 
is constancy made flexible to use and expression. Sir Charles 
Bell had no such thought as that he could magnify the beauty 
of God's way in the hand, by simply showing the curious articu- 
lations by which it is mechanically strengthened in m its gripe; 
the chief wonder, the real miracle of beauty in the instrument, 
as he well understood, lies in its flexibility, its ready submission 
to so many and such endlessly varied uses. Let us not be taken 
by the mere stability of nature, because it compliments our 
vanity by the easy understanding it permits. Magnitudes, 
weights, distances, regularities, are not the highest symbols of 
God's creative dignity. The glory, the true sublimity of God's 
architectural wisdom is that, while His Work stands fast in 
immutable order, it bends so gracefully to the humblest things, 
without damage or fracture, pliant to all free action, both His 
and ours ; receiving the common play of our liberty, and becom- 
ing always a fluent medium of reciprocal action between us ; to 
Him a hand showing His handiwork, or even a tongue which 
day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
forth knowledge of Him ; to us the ground of our works, the 
instrument of our choices, and yet, in the order, all, of a perfect 
counsel and of laws as immutable as His throne. In this rests 
the doctrine of faith, the doctrine that justifies prayer, enables 
the disciple to believe that God can notice him, and move 
among causes to help him ; raising him thus into a state of 
ennobled consciousness, how superior to the low mechanical 



THE WORLD OF NATURE. 1*9 

scepticism which thinks itself dignified in the discovery that 
God, incrusted in the stiffness of his scientific order, has no 
longer any power to bend Himself to man. 

The other point alluded to has reference to the comparative 
estimate of nature and the supernatural. Unexercised in the 
great world of Christian thought, uninitiated by years of holy 
experience in its deep mysteries, the natural philosopher and 
poet very commonly look upon the supernatural, or, what is the 
same, Christianity, as comprised of a few stray facts or ghostly 
wonders, much less credible than they might be, and turn away 
with a kind of pity from a field so narrow, to what they call a 
broader and more satisfactory teaching — that of the great school 
of nature. Here is variety, they say, beauty, magnificence, 
greatness, and a sound, consistent order, worthy of God. This, 
they imagine, is the true revelation. 

How little do such minds conceive what the world of super- 
natural fact comprises. Go to nature for the great and quick- 
ening thoughts, the wonders and broad truths ! Call nature 
the grand revelation ! Is it more to go to nature and know it, 
than to know God ? Are there deeper depths in nature, higher 
sublimities, thoughts more captivating and glorious '? In the 
mineral and vegetable shapes are there finer themes than in the 
life of Jesus? In the storms and gorgeous pilings of the 
clouds, are there manifestations of greatness and beauty more 
impressive than in the tragic sceneries of the cross ? Nature 
is the realm of things, the supernatural is the realm of powers. 
There the spinning worlds return into their circles and keep 
returning. Here the grand life-empire of mind, society, truth, 
liberty, and holy government, spreads itself in the view, unfold- 
ing always in changes, vast, various, and divinely beneficent. 
There we have a Georgic, or a hymn of the seasons ; here an 
epic that sings a lost Paradise. There God made the wheels of 
His chariot and set them rolling. Here He rides forth in it, 
leading His host after Him ; vast in counsel, wonderful in 
working ; preparing and marshalling all for a victory in good 
and blessing ; fashioning in beauty, composing in spiritual 
order, and so gathering in the immense populations of the 
worlds to be one realm — angels, archangels, seraphim, thrones, 
dominions, principalities, powers, and saints of mankind — all to 
find, in His works of guidance and new-creating grace, a volume 
of wisdom, which it will be the riches of their eternitv to studv. 



190 THE HIGHEST SUBJECTS NOT THOSE OF SCIENCE. 

Thus we conceive, alas ! too feebly, the true scale of dignity 
in God's two realms. In one the order is superficial and pal- 
pable. In the other it is deep as eternity, mysterious and vast 
as the counsel that comprehends eternity, in its development. 
Still it is counsel, it is order, it is truth and reason. Even as 
the Revelation of John contrives, in so many ways, to intimate, 
by the using of exact numbers for those which are not ; in the 
seven angels, and seven trumpets, and seven vials ; in the four 
beasts, and four and twenty elders ; in the hundred forty 
and four thousand of them that are sealed ; in the city, the 
new Jerusalem, that is four-square, having its height, length, 
and breadth equal ; with twelve gates, tended by twelve angels, 
resting on twelve foundations, that are twelve manner of pre- 
cious stones — by such images, and under such exact notations of 
arithmetic, does this man of vision put us on conceiving, as we 
best can, the glorious and exact society God is reconstructing 
out of the fallen powers. We shall see it to be all in law; 
settled in such terms of order, that all counsel, act, and joy, 
both His and ours, will be in terms of everlasting truth and 
reason, a realm as much more wonderful than nature, as liberties 
of mind are more difficult to master tban material quantities. 



CHRISTIANITY NO MERE SCHEME OF DOCTRINE. 191 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CHARACTER OF JESUS FORBIDS HIS POSSIBLE 
CLASSIFICATION WITH MEN. 

The need of a supernatural, divine ministration, to restore the 
disorders of sin, is now shown ; also that such a ministration 
is compatible with the order of nature, and, being in that view 
a rational possibility, that it may well be assumed as a probable 
expectation. In this manner we are brought directly up to con- 
front the main question — Is the exigency met by the fact ? is 
the supernatural divine ministration actually set up, and shown 
to be by adequate evidence ? 

Here we raise a question, for the first time, that puts the 
Christian Scriptures in issue ; for it is the grand peculiarity of 
these sacred writings, that they deal in supernatural events and 
transactions, and show the fact of a celestial institution finally 
erected on earth, in the person of Jesus Christ, which is called 
the kingdom of God or of heaven, and is in fact a perpetual, 
supernatural dispensatory of healing and salvation for the race. 
Christianity is, in this view, no mere scheme of doctrine, or of 
ethical practice, but is instead a kind of miracle, a power out 
of nature and above, descending into it ; a historically super- 
natural movement on the world, that is visibly entered into it, 
and organized to be an institution in the person of Jesus Christ. 
He, therefore, is the central figure and power, and with Him 
the entire fabric either stands or falls. 

To this central figure, then, we now turn ourselves ; and, as 
no proof beside the light is necessary to show that the sun 
shines, so we shall find that Jesus proves Himself by His own 
self- evidence. The simple inspection of His life and character 
will suffice to show that He cannot be classified with mankind 



192 THE GOSPEL HISTORY, HOW USED. 

(man though He be), any more than what we call His miracles 
can be classified with mere natural events. The simple demon- 
strations of His life and spirit are the sufficient attestation of 
His own profession, when He says — "I am from above" — 
" I came down from heaven." 

Let us not be misunderstood. "We do not assume the truth 
of the narrative by which the manner and facts of the life of 
Jesus are reported to us ; for this, by the supposition, is the 
matter in question. We only assume the representations them- 
selves, as being just what they are, and discover their necessary 
truth in the transcendent, wondrously self-evident picture of 
divine excellence and beauty presented in them. We take up 
the account of Christ in the New Testament, just as we would 
any other ancient writing, or as if it were a manuscript just 
brought to light in some ancient library. We open the book, 
and discover in it four distinct biographies of a certain remark- 
able character, called Jesus Christ. * He is miraculously born 
of Mary, a virgin of Galilee, and declares Himself, without 
scruple, that He came out from God. Finding the supposed 
history made up, in great part, of His mighty acts, and not 
being disposed to believe in miracles and marvels, we should 
soon dismiss the book as a tissue of absurdities too extravagant 
for belief, were we not struck with the sense of something very 
peculiar in the character of this remarkable person. Having 
our attention arrested thus by the impression made on our re- 
spect, we are put on inquiry, and the more we study it the 
more wonderful as a character it appears. And before we have 
done, it becomes, in fact, the chief wonder of the story ; lifting 
all the other wonders into order and intelligent proportion round 
it, and making one compact and glorious wonder of the whole 
picture — a picture shining in its own clear sunlight upon us, as 
the truest of all truths — Jesus, the Divine Word, coming out 
from God, to be incarnate with us, and be the vehicle of God 
and salvation to the race. 

On the single question, therefore, of the more than human 
character of Jesus, we propose in perfect confidence, to rest a 
principal argument for Christianity as a supernatural institu- 
tion ; for, if there be in Jesus a character which is not human, 
then has something broken into the world that is not of it, and 
the spell of unbelief is broken. 

Not that Christianity might not be a supernatural institution, 



JESUS BEGINS LIFE WITH A PERFECT CHILDHOOD. 193 

if Jesus were only a man ; for many prophets and holy men, as 
we believe, have brought forth to the world communications 
that are not from themselves, but were received by inspira- 
tions from God. There are several grades, too, of the super- 
natural, as already intimated ; the supernatural human, 
the .supernatural prophetic, the supernatural demonic and 
angelic, the supernatural divine. Christ, we shall see, is' the 
supernatural manifested in the highest grade or order, viz., the 
divine. 

We observe, then, as a first peculiarity at the root of His 
character, that He begins life with a perfect youth. His child- 
hood is an unspotted, and withal a kind of celestial flower. 
The notion of a superhuman or celestial childhood, the most 
difficult of all things to be conceived, is yet successfully drawn 
by a few simple touches. He is announced beforehand as 
" that Holy Thing;" a beautiful and powerful stroke to raise 
our expectation to the level of a nature so mysterious. In His 
childhood, everybody loves Him. Using words of external de- 
scription, He is shown growing up in favour with God and man, 
a child so lovely and beautiful that heaven and earth appear to 
smile upon Him together. So, when it is added that the child 
grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and, more 
than all, that the grace or beautifying power of God was upon 
Him, we look, as on the unfolding of a sacred flower, and seem 
to scent a fragrance wafted on us from other worlds. Then, at 
the age of twelve, He is found among the great learned men of 
the day, the doctors of the temple, hearing what they say, and 
asking them questions. And this without any word that indi- 
cates forwardness or pertness in the child's manner, such as 
some Christian Rabbi or silly and credulous devotee would cer- 
tainly have added. The doctors are. not offended, as by a child 
too forward or wanting in modesty, they are only amazed that 
such a degree of understanding can dwell in one so young and 
simple. His mother finds Him there among them, and begins 
to expostulate with Him. His reply is very strange , it must, 
she is sure, have some deep meaning that corresponds with His 
mysterious birth, and the sense He has ever given her of a some- 
thing strangely peculiar in His ways ; and she goes home keep- 
ing His saying in her heart, and guessing vainly what His 
thought may be. Mysterious, holy secret, which this mother 



194 HIS PERFECT CHILDHOOD 

hides in her bosom, that her holy thing, her child whom she 
has watched during the twelve years of His celestial childhood, 
now begins to speak of being " about His Father's business," 
in words of dark enigma, which she cannot fathom. 

Now we do not say, observe, that there is one word of truth 
in these touches of narration. We only say that, whether they 
be fact or fiction, here is given the sketch of a perfect and 
sacred childhood — not of a simple, lovely, ingenuous, and pro- 
perly human childhood, such as the poets love to sketch, but 
of a sacred and celestial childhood. In this respect the early 
character of Jesus is a picture that stands by itself. In no 
other case that we remember, has it ever entered the mind of 
a biographer, in drawing a character, to represent it as begin- 
ning with a spotless childhood. The childhood of the great 
human characters, if given at all, is commonly represented, ac- 
cording to the uniform truth, as being more or less contrary to 
the manner of their mature age ; and never as being strictly 
one with it, except in those cases of inferior eminence where 
the kind of distinction attained to is that of some mere prodigy, 
and not a character of greatness in action, or of moral excel- 
lence. In all the higher ranges of character, the excellence 
portrayed is never the simple unfolding of a harmonious and 
perfect beauty contained in the germ of childhood, but it is a 
character formed by a process of rectification, in which many 
follies are mended and distempers removed ; in which confidence 
is checked by defeat, passion moderated by reason, smartness 
sobered by experience. Commonly a certain pleasure is taken 
in showing how the many wayward sallies of the boy are, at 
length, reduced by discipline to the character of wisdom, justice, 
and public heroism so much admired. 

Besides, if any writer, of almost any age, will undertake to 
describe, not merely a spotless, but a superhuman or celestial 
childhood, not having the reality before him, he must be some- 
what more than human himself, if he does not pile together 
a mass of clumsy exaggerations, and draw and overdraw, till 
neither heaven nor earth can find any verisimilitude in the 
picture. 

Neither let us omit to notice what ideas the Rabbis and 
learned doctors of this age were able, in fact, to furnish, when 
setting forth a remarkable childhood. Thus Josephns, drawing 
on the teachings of the Rabbis, tells how the infant Moses, when 



GENUINELY DESCRIBED. 105 

the King of Egypt took him out of his daughter's arms, and 
playfully put the diadem on his head, threw it pettishly down 
and stamped on it. And when Moses was three years old, he 
tells us that the child had grown so tall, and exhibited such a 
wonderful beauty of countenance, that people were obliged, as 
it were, to stop and look at him as he was carried along the road, 
and were held fast by the wonder, gazing till he was out of sight. 
See, too, what work is made of the childhood of Jesus himself, 
in the Apocryphal gospels. These are written by men of so 
nearly the same era, that we may discover, in their embellish- 
ments, what kind of a childhood it was in the mere invention of 
the time to make out. While the gospels explicitly say that 
Jesus wrought no miracles till His public ministry began, and 
that He made His beginning in the miracle of Cana, these are 
ambitious to make Him a great prodigy in His childhood. They 
tell how, on one occasion, He pursued, in His anger, the other 
children, who refused to play with Him, and turned them into 
kids ; how, on another, when a child accidentally ran against 
Him, He was angry, and killed him by His mere word ; how, 
on another, Jesus had a dispute with His teacher over the 
alphabet, and when the teacher struck Him, how he crushed him, 
withered his arm, and threw him down dead, Finally, Joseph 
tells Mary that they must keep Him within doors ; for everybody 
perishes against whom He is excited. His mother sends Him 
to the well for water, and having broken His pitcher, He brings 
the water in His cloak. He goes into a dyer's shop, when the 
dyer is out, and throws all the cloths He finds into a vat of one 
colour, but, when they are taken out, behold, they are all dyed 
of the precise colour that was ordered. He commands a palm- 
tree to stoop down and let Him pluck the fruit, and it obeys. 
When He is carried down into Egypt, and all the idols fall down 
wherever He passes, and the lions and leopards gather round 
Him in a harmless company. This the Gospel of the Infancy 
gives us a picture of the wonderful childhood of Jesus. How 
unlike that holy flower of paradise, in the true gospels, which a 
few simple touches make to bloom in beautiful self-evidence 
before us ! 

Passing now to the character of Jesus in His maturity, we 
discover at once that there is an element in it which distin- 
guishes it from all human characters, viz., innocence. By this 



196 DISTINGUISHED FROM MEN 

we mean, not that He is actually sinless ; that will he denied, 
and therefore must not here be assumed. We mean that, 
viewed externally, He is a perfectly harmless being, actuated by 
no destructive passions, gentle to inferiors, doing ill or injury 
to none. The figure of a lamb, which never was, or could be, 
applied to any of the great human characters, without an im- 
plication of weakness fatal to all respect, is yet, with no such 
effect, applied to Him. We associate weakness with innocence, 
and the association is so powerful, that no human writer would 
undertake to sketch a great character on the basis of innocence, 
or would even think it possible. We predicate innocence of 
infancy, but to be a perfectly harmless, guileless man, never 
doing ill even for a moment, we consider to be the same as to 
be a man destitute of spirit and manly force. But Christ ac- 
complished the impossible. Appearing in all the grandeur and 
majesty of a superhuman manhood, He is able still to unite the 
impression of innocence, with no apparent diminution of His 
sublimity. It is, in fact, the distinctive glory of His character, 
that it seems to be the natural unfolding of a divine innocence, 
a pure celestial childhood, amplified by growth. We feel the 
power of this strange combination, but we have so great diffi- 
culty in conceiving it, or holding our minds to the conception, 
that we sometimes subside or descend to the human level, and 
empty the character of Jesus of the strange element unawares. 
We read, for example, His terrible denunciations against the 
Pharisees, and are shocked by the violent, fierce sound they have 
on our mortal lips ; not perceiving that the offence is in us, and 
not in Him. We should suffer no such revulsion, did we only 
conceive them bursting out, as words of indignant grief, from 
the surcharged bosom of innocence ; for there is nothing so 
bitter as the offence that innocence feels, when stung by hypo- 
crisy and a sense of cruelty to the poor. So, when He drives 
the money-changers from the temple, we are likely to leave out 
the only element that saves Him from a look of violence and 
passion. Whereas it is the very point of the story, not that 
He, as by mere force, can drive so many men, but that so many 
are seen retiring before the moral power of one — a mysterious 
being, in whose face and form the indignant flush of innocence 
reveals a tremendous feeling they can nowise comprehend, much 
less are able to resist. 

Accustomed to no such demonstrations of vigour and decision 



BY HIS INNOCENCE. 197 

in the innocent human characters, and having it as our way to 
set them down, without further consideration, as 
"Incapable and shallow innocents," 

we turn the indignant fire of Jesus into a fire of malignity ; 
whereas it should rather be conceived that Jesus here reveals 
His divinity, by what so powerfully distinguishes God Himself, 
when He clothes His goodness in the tempests and thunders of 
nature. Decisive, great, and strong, Christ is yet all this, 
even the more sublimely, that He is invested withal in the 
lovely but humanly feeble garb of innocence. And that this 
is the true conception is clear, in the fact that no one ever 
thinks of Him as weak, and no one fails to be somehow im- 
pressed with a sense of innocence by His life ; when His enemies 
are called to show what evil or harm He hath done, they can 
specify nothing, save that He has offended their bigotry. Even 
Pilate, when he gives Him up, confesses that he finds nothing 
in Him to blame, and, shuddering with apprehensions he cannot 
subdue, washes his hands to be clear of the innocent blood ! 
Thus He dies, a being holy, harmless, undefiled. And when 
He hangs a bruised flower drooping on His cross, and the sun 
above is dark, and the earth beneath shudders with pain, what 
have we in this funeral grief of the worlds, but a fit honour 
paid to the sad majesty of His divine innocence ? 

We pass now to His religious character, which, we shall dis- 
cover, has the remarkable distinction that it proceeds from a 
point exactly opposite to that which is the root or radical 
element in the religious character of men. Human piety begins 
with repentance. It is the effort of a being, implicated in 
wrong and writhing under the stings of guilt, to come unto 
God. The most righteous, or even self-righteous, men blend 
expressions of sorrow and vows of new obedience with their 
exercises. But Christ, in the character given Him, never 
acknowledges sin. It is the grand peculiarity of His piety, that 
He never regrets anything He has done or been ; expresses 
nowhere a single feeling of compunction, or the least sense of 
unworthiness. On the contrary, He boldly challenges His 
accusers, in the question — Which of you convinceth me of sin? 
and even declares, at the close of His life, in a solemn appeal 
to God, that He has given to men, unsullied, the glory divine 
that was deposited in Him. 



198 HIS RELIGIOUS CHARACTER. 

Now the question is not whether Christ was, in fact, the 
faultless being assumed in His religious character. All we 
have to notice here is that He makes the assumption, makes it 
not only in words, but in the very tenor of His exercises them- 
selves, and that by this fact His piety is radically distinguished 
from all human piety. And no mere human creature, it is 
certain, could hold such a religious attitude, without shortly 
displaying faults that would cover him with derision, or 
excesses and delinquencies that would even disgust his friends. 
Piety without one dash of repentance, one ingenuous confession 
of wrong, one tear, one look of contrition, one request to 
heaven for pardon — let any one of mankind try this kind of 
piety, and see how long it will be ere his righteousness will 
prove itself to be the most impudent conceit ! how long before 
his passions, sobered by no contrition, his pride kept down by 
no repentance, will tempt him into absurdities that will turn 
his pretences to mockery ! No sooner does any one of us begin 
to be self-righteous, than he begins to fall into outward sins 
that shame his conceit. But, in the case of Jesus, no such 
disaster follows. Beginning with an impenitent or unrepen- 
tant piety, He holds it to the end, and brings no visible stain 
upon it. 

Now, one of two things must be true. He was either sinless, 
or He was not. If sinless, what greater, more palpable excep- 
tion to the law of human development, than that a perfect and 
stainless being has for once lived in the flesh ! If not, which is 
the supposition required of those who deny everything above the 
range of human development, then we have a man taking up a 
religion without repentance, a religion not human, but celestial, 
a style of piety never taught him in his childhood, and never 
conceived or attempted among men — more than this, a style of 
piety, withal, wholly unsuited to his real character as a sinner, 
holding it as a figment of insufferable presumption to the end of 
life, and that in a way of such unfaltering grace and beauty, as 
to command the universal homage of the human race ! Could 
there be a wider deviation from all we know of mere human 
development. 

He was also able perfectly to unite elements of character, 
that others find the greatest difficulty in uniting, however 
unevenly and partially. He is never said to have smiled, and 



HE UNITES OPPOSITES. 199 

yet He never produces the impression of austerity, moroseness, 
sadness, or even of being unhappy. On the contrary, He is 
described as one that appears to be commonly filled with a 
sacred joy; "rejoicing in spirit," and leaving to His disciples, 
in the hour of His departure, the bequest of His joy — "that 
they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves." We could 
not long endure a human being whose face was* never moved 
by laughter, or relaxed by a gladdening smile. What sym- 
pathy could we have with one who appears, in this manner, to 
have no human heart ? We could not even trust him. And 
yet we have sympathy with Christ ; for there is somewhere in 
Him an ocean of deep joy, and we see that He is, in fact, only 
burdened with His sympathy for us to such a degree, that His 
mighty life is overcast and oppressed by the charge He has 
undertaken. His lot is the lot of privation, He has no power- 
ful friends, He has not even where to lay His head. No human 
being could appear in such a guise, without occupying us much 
with the sense of His affliction. We should be descending to 
him, as it were, in pity. But we never pity Christ, never 
think of Him as struggling with the disadvantages of a lower 
level, to rise above it. In fact, He does not allow us, after all, 
to think much of His privations. We think of Him more as a 
being of mighty resources, proving Himself, only the more 
sublimely, that He is in the guise of destitution. He is the 
most unworldly of beings, having no desire at all for what the 
earth can give, impossible to be caught with any longing for 
its benefits, impassable even to its charms, and yet there is no 
ascetic sourness or repugnance, no misanthropic distaste in His 
manner ; as if He were bracing Himself against the world to 
keep it off. The more closely He is drawn to other worlds, 
the more fresh and susceptible is He to the humanities of this. 
The little child is an image of gladness, which His heart leaps 
forth to embrace. The wedding and the feast and the funeral 
have all their cord of sympathy in His bosom. At the wedding 
He is clothed in congratulation, at the feast in doctrine, at the 
funeral in tears ; but no miser was ever drawn to his money 
with a stronger desire than He to worlds above the world. 
Men undertake to be spiritual, and they become ascetic ; or, 
endeavouring to hold a liberal view of the comforts and 
pleasures of society, they are soon buried in the world, and 
slaves to its fashions ; or, holding a scrupulous watch to keep 



200 HIS ASTONISHING PRETENSIONS 

out every particular sin, they become legal, and fall out of 
liberty ; or, charmed with the noble and heavenly liberty, they 
run to negligence and irresponsible living ; so the earnest 
become violent, the fervent fanatical and censorious, the gentle 
waver, the firm turn bigots, the liberal grow lax, the benevolent 
ostentatious. Poor human infirmity can hold nothing steady. 
Where the pivot of righteousness is broken, the scales must 
needs slide off their balance. Indeed, it is one of the most 
difficult things which a cultivated Christian can attempt, only 
to sketch a theoretic view of character, in its true justness and 
proportion, so that a little more study, or a little more self- 
experience, will not require him to modify it. And yet the 
character of Christ is never modified, even by a shade of 
rectification. It is one and the same throughout. He makes 
no improvements, prunes no extravagances, returns from no 
eccentricities. The balance of His character is never disturbed 
or readjusted, and the astounding assumption on which it is 
based is never shaken, even by a suspicion that He falters in it. 

There is yet another point related to this, in which the 
attitude of Jesus is even more distinct from any that was ever 
taken by man, and is yet triumphantly sustained. I speak of 
the astonishing pretensions asserted concerning His person. 
Similar pretensions have sometimes been assumed by maniacs, 
or insane persons, but never, so far as I know, by persons in 
the proper exercise of their reason. Certain it is that no mere 
man could take the same attitude of supremacy toward the 
race, and inherent affinity or oneness with God, without fatally 
shocking the confidence of the world by his effrontery. 
Imagine a human creature saying to the world — " I came 
forth from the Father" — "Ye are from beneath, I am from 
above ; ' ' facing all the intelligence and even the philosophy of 
the world, and saying, in bold assurance — "Behold, a greater 
than Solomon is here" — " I am the light of the world" — " the 
way, the truth, and the life ;" publishing to all peoples and 
religions — " No man cometh to the Father, but by me ; " pro- 
mising openly in His death — " I will draw all men unto me;" 
addressing the Infinite Majesty, and testifying — "I have 
glorified thee on the earth ; " calling to the human race — 
"Come unto me," "follow me;" laying His hand upon all 
the dearest and most intimate affections of life, and demanding 



ARE FULLY SUPPORTED. 201 

a precedent love — " He that loveth father or mother more 
than me, is not worthy of me." Was there ever displayed an 
example of effrontery and spiritual conceit so preposterous ? 
Was there ever a man that dared put himself on the world in 
such pretensions ? — as if all light was in him, as if to follow 
him and be worthy of him was to he the conclusive or chief 
excellence of mankind ! What hut mockery and disgust does 
he challenge as the certain reward of his audacity ! But no 
one is offended with Jesus on this account ; and what is a sure 
test of His success, it is remarkable that, of all the readers of 
the gospel, it probably never even occurs to one in a hundred 
thousand to blame His conceit, or the egregious vanity of His 
pretensions. 

Nor is there anything disputable in these pretensions, least 
of all, any trace of myth or fabulous tradition. They enter 
into the very web of His ministry, so that if they are extracted 
and nothing left transcending mere humanity, nothing at all is 
left. Indeed, there is a tacit assumption, continually main- 
tained, that far exceeds the range of these formal pretensions. 
He says — " I and the Father that sent me." What figure 
would a man present in such language — I and the Father ? 
He goes even beyond this, and apparently without any thought 
of excess or presumption, classing Himself with the Infinite 
Majesty in a common plural, He says — " We will come unto 
him, and make our abode with him." Imagine any, the 
greatest and holiest of mankind, any prophet, or apostle, say- 
ing we, of himself -and the great Jehovah ! What a concep- 
tion did He give us concerning Himself, when He assumed the 
necessity of such information as this — " My Father is greater 
than I;" and above all, when He calls Himself, as He often 
does, in a tone of condescension — " the Son of Man." See 
Him also on the top of Olivet, looking down on the guilty 
city and weeping words of compassion like these — imagine 
some man weeping over London or New York, in the like — 
" How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a 
hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
not!" See Him also in the supper, instituting a rite of re- 
membrance for Himself, a scorned, outcast man, and saying — 
" This is my body " — " This clo in remembrance of me." 

I have dwelt thus on the transcendent pretensions of Jesus, 
because there is an argument here for His superhumanity, which 



202 HIS ASTONISHING PRETENSIONS FULLY SUPPORTED 

cannot be resisted. For eighteen hundred years these prodigious 
assumptions have been published and preached to a world that 
is quick to lay hold of conceit, and bring down the lofty airs of 
pretenders, and yet, during all this time, whole nations of people, 
composing as well the learned and powerful as the ignorant and 
humble, have paid their homage to the name of Jesus, detecting 
never any disagreement between His merits and His preten- 
sions, offended never by any thought of His extravagance. In 
which we have absolute proof that he practically maintains His 
amazing assumptions ! Indeed it will even be found that, in the 
common apprehension of the race, He maintains the merit of a 
most peculiar modesty, producing no conviction more distinctly 
than that of His intense lowliness and humility. His worth is 
seen to be so great, His authority so high, His spirit so celestial, 
that instead of being offended by His pretensions, we take the 
impression of one in whom it is even a condescension to breathe 
our air. I say not that His friends and followers take this im- 
pression, it is received as naturally and irresistibly by unbe- 
lievers. I do not recollect any sceptic or infidel who has even 
thought to accuse Him as a conceited person, or to assault Him 
in this, the weakest and absurdest, if not the strongest and 
holiest, point of His character. 

Come now, all ye that tell u& in your wisdom of the mere 
natural humanity of Jesus, and help us to find how it is, that 
He is only a natural development of the human; select your 
best and wisest character ; take the range, if you will, of all the 
great philosophers and saints, and choose out one that is most 
competent ; or if, perchance, some one of you may imagine that 
he is himself about upon a level with Jesus (as we hear that 
some of you do), let him come forward in this trial and say — 
''Follow me " — " Be worthy of me " — " I am the light of the 
world " — " Ye are from beneath, I am from above " — " Behold 
a greater than Solomon is here ; " take on all these transcendent 
assumptions, and see how soon your glory will be sifted out of 
you by the detective gaze, and darkened by the contempt of 
mankind ! Why not ; is not the challenge fair ? Do you not 
tell us that you can say as divine things as he ? Is it not in you 
too, of course, to do what is human ? are you not in the front 
rank of human developments ? do you not rejoice in the power 
to rectify many mistakes and errors in the words of Jesus ? 
Give us then this one experiment, and see if it does not prove to 



HE EXCELS IN THE PASSIVE, 203 

you a truth that is of some consequence; viz., that you are a 
man, and that Jesus Christ is — more. 

But there is also a passive side to the character of Jesus, 
which is equally peculiar, and which also demands our atten- 
tion. I recollect no really great character in history, excepting 
such as may have been formed under Christianity, that can 
properly be said to have united the passive virtues, or to have 
considered them any essential part of a finished character. 
Socrates comes the nearest to such an impression, and there- 
fore most resembles Christ in the submissiveness of his death. 
It does not appear, however, that his mind had taken this turn 
previously to his trial, and the submission he makes to the 
public sentence is, in fact, a refusal only to escape from the 
prison surreptitiously ; which he does, partly because he thinks 
it the duty of every good citizen not to break the laws, and 
partly, if we judge from his manner, because he is detained by 
a subtle pride, as if it were something unworthy of a grave 
philosopher to be stealing away, as a fugitive, from the laws 
and tribunals of his country. The Stoics, indeed, have it for 
one of their great principles, that the true wisdom of life con- 
sists in a passive power, viz., in being able to bear suffering 
rightly. But they mean by this the bearing of suffering so 
as not to feel it ; a steeling of the mind against sensibility, 
and the raising of the will into such power as to drive back the 
pangs of life, or shake them off. But this, in fact, contains 
no allowance of passive virtue at all ; on the contrary, it is an 
attempt so to exalt the active powers, as to even exclude every 
sort of passion or passivity. And Stoicism corresponds, in this 
respect, with the general sentiment of the world's great char- 
acters. They are such as like to see things in the heroic vein, 
to see spirit and courage breasting themselves against wrong, 
and, where the evil cannot be escaped by resistance, dying in a 
manner of defiance. Indeed, it has been the impression of the 
world generally, that patience, gentleness, readiness to suffer 
wrong without resistance, is but another name for weakness. 

But Christ, in opposition to all such impressions, manages to 
connect these non-resisting and gentle passivities with a cha- 
racter of the severest grandeur and majesty ; and, what is more, 
convinces us that no truly great character can exist without 
them. 



204 AS IN THE ACTIVE VIRTUES. 

Observe. Him, first, in what may be called the common trials 
of existence. For if you will put a character to the severest of 
all tests, see whether it can bear, without faltering, the little, 
common ills and hindrances of life. Many a man will go to his 
martyrdom with a spirit of firmness and heroic composure, 
whom a little weariness or nervous exhaustion, some silly 
prejudice, or capricious opposition would, for the moment, throw 
into a fit of vexation or ill-nature. Great occasions rally great 
principles, and brace the mind to a lofty bearing, a bearing that 
is even above itself. But trials that make no occasion at all, 
leave it to show the goodness and beauty it has in its own 
disposition. And here precisely is the superhuman glory of 
Christ as a character, that He is just as perfect, exhibits just 
as great a spirit in little trials as in great ones. In all the 
history of His life, we are not able to detect the faintest indica- 
tion that He slips or falters. And this is the more remarkable, 
that He is prosecuting so great a work with so great enthusiasm ; 
counting it His meat and drink, and pouring into it all the 
energies of His life. For when men have great works on hand, 
their very enthusiasm runs to impatience. When thwarted or 
unreasonably hindered, their soul strikes fire against the 
obstacles they meet, they worry themselves at every hindrance, 
every disappointment, and break out in stormy and fanatical 
violence. But Jesus, for some reason, is just as even, just as 
serene, in all His petty vexations and hindrances, as if He had 
nothing on hand to do. A kind of sacred patience invests Him 
everywhere. Having no element of crude will mixed with His 
work, He is able, in all trial and opposition, to hold a condition 
of serenity above the clouds, and let them sail under Him, 
without ever obscuring the sun. He is poor, and hungry, and 
weary, and despised, insulted by His enemies, deserted by His 
friends, but never disheartened, never fretted or ruffled. You 
see, meantime, that He is no Stoic ; He visibly feels every such 
ill as His delicate and sensitive nature must, but He has some 
sacred and sovereign good present to mingle with His pains, 
which, as it were naturally and without any self-watching, 
allays them. He does not seem to rule His temper, but rather 
to have none ; for temper, in the sense of passion, is a fury that 
follows the will, as the lightnings follow the disturbing forces of 
the winds among the clouds ; and accordingly where there is no 
self-will to roll up the clouds and hurl them through the sky, 



HIS AGONY NOT HUMAN. 205 

the lightnings hold their equilibrium, and are as though they 
were not. 

As regards what is called pre-eminently His passion, the 
scene of martyrdom that closes His life, it is easy to distinguish 
a character in it which separates it from all mere human 
martyrdoms. Thus, it will be observed, that His agony, the 
scene in which His suffering is bitterest and most evident, is, 
on human principles, wholly misplaced. It comes before the 
time, when as yet there is no arrest, and no human prospect 
that there will be any. He is at large to go where He pleases, 
and in perfect outward safety. His disciples have just been 
gathered round Him in a scene of more than family tenderness 
and affection. Indeed it is but a very few hours since that He 
was coming into the city, at the head of a vast procession, 
followed by loud acclamations, and attended by such honours 
as may fitly celebrate the inaugural of a king. Yet here, with 
no bad sign apparent, we see Him plunged into a scene of 
deepest distress, and racked, in his feeling, with a more than 
mortal agony. Coming out of this, assured and comforted, He 
is shortly arrested, brought to trial, and crucified ; where, if 
there be anything questionable in His manner, it is in the fact 
that He is even more composed than some would have Him to 
be, not even stooping to defend Himself or vindicate His inno- 
cence. And when He dies, it is not as when the martyrs die. 
They die for what they have said, and remaining silent will 
not recant. He dies for what He has not said, and still is 
silent. 

By the misplacing of His agony thus, and the strange silence 
He observes when the real hour of agony is come, we are put 
entirely at fault on natural principles. But it was not for Him 
to wait, as being only a man, till He is arrested and the hand 
of death is before Him, then to be nerved by the occasion to a 
show of victory. He that was before Abraham, must also be 
before His occasions. In a time of safety, in a cool hour of 
retirement, unaccountably to His friends, He falls into a dread- 
ful contest and struggle of mind ; coming out of it, finally, to go 
through His most horrible tragedy of crucifixion, with the 
serenity of a spectator ? 

Why now this so great intensity of sorrow ? why this agony ? 
Was there not something unmanly in it, something unworthy 
of a really great soul ? Take Him to be only a man, and there 



206 HIS PASSION A MYSTERY. 

probably was ; nay, if He were a woman, the same might be 
said. But this one thing is clear, that no one of mankind, 
whether man or woman, ever had the sensibility to suffer so 
intensely ; even showing the body, for the mere struggle and 
pain of the mind, exuding and dripping with blood. Evidently 
there is something mysterious here ; which mystery is vehicle 
to our feeling, and rightfully may be, of something divine. 
What, we begin to ask, should be the power of a superhuman 
sensibility ? and how far should the human vehicle shake under 
such a power ? How too should an innocent and pure spirit be 
exercised, when about to suffer in His own person, the greatest 
wrong ever committed ? 

Besides, there is a vicarious spirit in love ; all love inserts 
itself vicariously into the sufferings and woes, and, in a certain 
sense, the sins of others, taking them on itself as a burden. 
How then, if perchance Jesus should be divine, an embodiment 
of God's love in the world — how should He feel, and by what 
signs of feeling manifest His sensibility, when a fallen race are 
just about to do the damning sin that crowns their guilty 
history ; to crucify the only perfect being that ever came into 
the world ; to crucify even Him, the messenger and representa- 
tive to them of the love of God, the deliverer who has taken 
their case and cause upon Him ! Whosoever duly ponders 
these questions, will find that he is led away, more and more, 
from any supposition of the mere mortality of Jesus. What he 
looks upon, he will more and more distinctly see to be the 
pathology of a superhuman anguish. It stands, he will per- 
ceive, in no mortal key. It will be to him the anguish 
visibly, not of any pusillanimous feeling, but of holy character 
itself; nay, of a mysteriously transcendent, or somehow divine, 
character. 

But why did he not defend His cause and justify His inno- 
cence in the trial ? Partly because He had the wisdom to see 
that there really was and could be no trial, and that one who 
undertakes to plead with a mob only mocks his own virtue, 
throwing words into the air that is already filled with the 
clamours of prejudice. To plead innocence in such a case, is 
only to make a protestation, such as indicates fear, and is 
really unworthy of a great and composed spirit. A man would 
have done it, but Jesus did not. Besides, there was a plea 
of innocence in the manner of Jesus, and the few very signifi- 



HIS UNDERTAKING IS NOT HUMAN. 207 

cant words that He dropped, that had an effect on the mind of 
Pilate, more searching and powerful than any formal protesta- 
tions. And the more we study the conduct of Jesus during 
the whole scene, the more shall we be satisfied that He said 
enough ; the more admire the mysterious composure, the wis- 
dom, the self-possession, and the superhuman patience of the 
sufferer. It was visibly the death scene of a transcendent love. 
He dies not as a man, but rather as some one might who is 
mysteriously more and higher. So thought aloud the hard- 
faced soldier — " Truly this was the Son of God." As if he 
had said — " I have seen men die — this is not a man. They 
call him Son of God — He cannot be less." Can He be less to 
us? 

But Christ shows Himself to be a superhuman character, not 
in the personal traits only, exhibited in His life, but even more 
sublimely in the undertakings, works, and teachings by which 
He proved His Messiahship. 

Consider then the reach of His undertaking ; which if He was 
only a man, shows Him to have been the most extravagant and 
even wildest of all human enthusiasts. Contrary to every 
religious prejudice of His nation and even of His time, contrary 
to the comparatively narrow and exclusive religion of Moses 
itself, and to all His training under it, He undertakes to 
organize a kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven on earth. 
His purpose includes a new moral creation of the race — not of 
the Jews only and of men, proselyted to their covenant, but of 
the whole human race. He declared thus, at an early date in 
His ministry, that many shall come from the .east and the west 
and sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the king- 
dom of God ; that the field is the world ; and that God so loves 
the world as to give for it His only begotten Son. He also 
declared that His gospel shall be published to all nations, and 
gave His apostles their commission, to go into all the world and 
publish His gospel to every creature. 

Here, then, we have the grand idea of His mission — it is to 
new-create the human race and restore it to God, in the unity 
of a spiritual kingdom. And upon this single fact, Reinhard 
erects a complete argument for His extra-human character ; 
going into a formal review of all the great founders of states 
and most celebrated lawgivers, the great heroes and defenders 



208 BUT HIS CONFIDENCE 

of nations, all the wise kings and statesmen, all the philosophers, 
all the prophet-founders of religions, and discovering as a fact 
that no such thought as this, or nearly proximate to this, 
had ever before been taken up by any living character in 
history ; showing also how it had happened to every other 
great character, however liberalized by culture, to be limited in 
some way to the interest of His own people or empire, and set 
in opposition or antagonism, more or less decidedly, to the rest 
of the world. But to Jesus alone, the simple Galilean carpen- 
ter, it happens otherwise ; that, having never seen a map 
of the world in his whole life, or heard the name of half the 
great nations on it, He undertakes, coming out of His shop, a 
scheme as much vaster and more difficult than that of Alex- 
ander, as it proposes more, and what is more divinely benevo- 
lent ! This thought of a universal kingdom, cemented in God 
— why, the immense Eoman empire of His day, constructed by 
so many ages of war and conquest, is a bauble in comparison, 
both as regards the extent and the cost! And yet the rustic 
tradesman of Galilee propounds even this for His errand, and 
that in a way of assurance as simple and quiet, as if the im- 
mense reach of His plan were, in fact, a matter to Him of no 
consideration. 

Nor is this all ; there is included in His plan, what, to any 
mere man, would be yet more remote from the possible confi- 
dence of His frailty ; it is a plan as universal in time, as it is 
in the scope of its objects. It does not expect to be realized 
in a lifetime, or even in many centuries to come. He calls it, 
understandingly, his grain of mustard seed ; which, however, 
is to grow, He declares, and overshadow the whole earth. But 
the courage of Jesus, counting a thousand years to be only a 
single day, is equal to the run of His work. He sees a rock of 
stability, where men see only frailty and weakness. Peter 
himself, the impulsive and always unreliable Peter, turns into 
rock and becomes a great foundation, as he looks upon Him. 
"On this rock," He says, "I will build my church, and the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it. His expectation, too, reaches 
boldly out beyond His own death ; that, in fact, is to be the 
seed of his great empire — " Except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground and die, it abideth," He says, " alone." And if we 
will see with what confidence and courage He adheres to His 
plan when the time of His death approaches — how far He is 



NEVER FALTERS. 209 

from giving it up as lost, or as an exploded vision of His 
youthful enthusiasm — we have only to observe His last inter- 
view with the two sisters of Bethany, in whose hospitality He 
wns so often comforted. When the box of precious ointment 
is broken upon His head, which Judas reproves as a useless 
expense, He discovers a sad propriety, or even prophecy, in 
what the woman has done, as connected with His death, now at 
hand. But it does not touch His courage, we perceive, or the 
confidence of His plan, or even cast a shade on His prospect. 
" Let her alone. She hath done what she could. She is come 
aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. Verily I say 
unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout 
the whole world, this also that this woman hath done shall be 
told for a memorial of her." Such was the sublime confidence 
He had in a plan that was to run through all future ages, and 
would scarcely begin to show its fruits during His own life- 
time. 

In this great idea, then, which no man ever before conceived, 
the raising of the whole human race to God, a plan sustained 
with such evenness of courage, and a confidence of the world's 
future so far transcending any human example — is this a human 
development ? Regard the benevolence of it, the universality 
of it, the religious grandeur of it, as a work readjusting the 
relations of God and His government with men — the cost, the 
length of time it will cover, and the far off date of its com- 
pletion — is it in this scale that a Nazarene carpenter, a poor 
uneducated villager, lays out His plans and graduates the confi- 
dence of His undertakings ? There have been great enthusiasts 
in the world, and they have shown their infirmity by lunatic 
airs, appropriate to their extravagance. But it is not human, 
we may safely affirm, to lay out projects transcending all human 
ability, like this of Jesus, and which cannot be completed in 
many thousands of years, doing it in all the airs of sobriety, 
entering on the performance without parade, and yielding life to 
it firmly as the inaugural of its triumph. No human creature 
sits quietly down to a perpetual project, one that proposes to be 
executed only at the end or final harvest of the world. That is 
not human but divine. 

Passing now to what is more interior in His ministry, taken 
as a revelation of His character, we are struck with another dis- 
tinction, viz., that He takes rank with the poor, and grounds all 



210 HIS EXPECTATION IS IN THE POOR. 

the immense expectations of His cause on a beginning made 
with the lowly and dejected classes of the world. He was 
born to the lot of the poor. His manners, tastes, and intel- 
lectual attainments, however, visibly outgrew His condition, and 
that in such a degree that, if He had been a mere human 
character, He must have suffered some painful distaste for the 
kind of society in which He lived. The great, as we perceive, 
flocked to hear Him, and sometimes came even by night to re- 
ceive His instructions. He saw the highest circles of society 
and influence open to Him, if He only desired to enter them. 
And, if he was a properly human character, what virtuous but 
rising young man would have a thought of impropriety, in ac- 
cepting the elevation within his reach, considering it as the 
proper reward of his industry, and the -merit of his character — 
not to speak of the contempt for his humble origin, and his 
humble associates, which every upstart person of only ordinary 
virtue is so commonly seen to manifest. Still He adheres to the 
poor, and makes them the object of His ministry. And what 
is more peculiar, He visibly has a kind of interest in their 
society, which is wanting in that of the higher classes ; per- 
ceiving, apparently, that they have a certain aptitude for re- 
ceiving right impressions which the others have not. They are 
not the wise and prudent, filled with the conceit of learning and 
station, but they are the ingenuous babes of poverty, open to 
conviction, prepared, by their humble lot, to receive thoughts 
and doctrines in advance of their age. Therefore He loves the 
poor, and, without descending to their low manners, He delights 
to be identified with them. He is more assiduous in their ser- 
vice than other men have been in serving the great. He goes 
about on foot, teaching them and healing their sick ; occupying 
His great and elevated mind, for whole years, with details of 
labour and care, which the nurse of no hospital had ever laid 
upon him — insanities, blind eyes, fevers, fluxes, leprosies, and 
sores. His patients are all below His level, and unable to 
repay Him, even by a breath of congenial sympathy ; and 
nothing supports Him but the consciousness of good which 
attends His labours. 

Meantime, consider what contempt for the poor had hitherto 
prevailed, among all the great statesmen and philanthropists of 
the world. The poor were not society, or any part of society. 
They were only the conveniences and drudges of society ; ap- 



HIS EXPECTATION IS IN THE POOR. 211 

pendages of luxury and state, tools of ambition, material to be 
used in the wars. No man who had taken up the idea of some 
great change or reform in society, no philosopher who had con- 
ceived the notion of building up an ideal state or republic, ever 
thought of beginning with the poor. Influence was seen to re- 
side in the higher classes, and the only hope of reaching the 
world, by any scheme of social regeneration, was to begin with 
them, and through them operate its results. But Christ, if 
we call Him a philosopher, and, if He is only a man, we can 
call Him by no higher name, was the poor man's philosopher ; 
the first and only one that had ever appeared. Seeing the 
higher circles open to Him, and tempted to imagine that if He 
could once get footing for His doctrine among the influential 
and the great, He should thus secure His triumph more easily. 
He had yet no such thought. He laid his foundations, as it 
were, below all influence, and, as men would judge, threw Him- 
self away. And precisely here did He display a wisdom and a 
character totally in advance of His age. Eighteen centuries 
have passed away, and we now seem just beginning to under- 
stand the transcendent depth of this feature in His mission and 
His character. We appear to be just waking up to it as a dis- 
covery, that the blessing and upraising of the masses are the 
fundamental interest of society — a discovery, however, which is 
only a proof that the life of Jesus has, at length, begun to 
penetrate society and public history. It is precisely this which 
is working so many and great changes in our times, giving 
liberty and right to the enslaved many, seeking their education, 
encouraging their efforts by new and better hopes, producing 
an aversion to war, which has been the fatal source of their 
misery and depression, and opening, as we hope, a new era of 
comfort, light, and virtue in the world. It is as if some 
higher and better thought had visited our race — which higher 
thought is in the life of Jesus. The schools of all the philoso- 
phers are gone, hundreds of years ago, and all their visions have 
died away into thin air ; but the poor man's philosopher still 
lives, bringing up His poor to liberty, light, and character, and 
drawing the nations on to a brighter and better day. 

At the same time, the more than human character of Jesus 
is displayed also in the fact that, identifying Himself thus with 
the poor, He is yet able to do it without eliciting any feelings of 



212 HE BECOMES THEIR PATRON. 

partisanship in them. To one who will be at the pains to reflect 
a little, nothing will seem more difficult than this ; to become 
the patron of a class, a down-trodden and despised class, with- 
out rallying in them a feeling of intense malignity. And that 
for the reason, partly, that no patron, however just or magna- 
nimous, is ever quite able to suppress the feelings of a partisan 
in himself. A little ambition, pricked on by a little abuse, a 
faint desire of popularity playing over the face of his benevolence, 
and tempting him to loosen a little of ill-nature, as tinder to the 
passions of his sect — something of this kind is sure to kindle 
some fire of malignity in his clients. 

Besides, men love to be partisans. Even Paul and Apollos 
and Peter had their sects or schools glorying in one against 
another. With all their efforts, they could not •suppress a 
weakness so contemptible. But no such feeling could ever get 
footing under Christ. If His disciples had forbidden one to 
heal in the name of Jesus, because he followed not with them, 
He gently rebuked them, and made them feel that He had 
larger views than to suffer any such folly. As the friend of 
the poor and oppressed class, He set Himself openly against 
their enemies, and chastised them as oppressors, with the most 
terrible rebukes. He exposed the absurdity of their doctrine, 
and silenced them in argument ; He launched His thunder- 
bolts against their base hypocrisies ; but it does not appear 
that the populace ever testified their pleasure, even by a cheer, 
or gave vent to any angry emotion under cover of His leader- 
ship. For there was something still, in the manner and air of 
Jesus, which made them feel it to be inappropriate, and even 
made it impossible. It was as if some being were^here, taking 
their part, whom it were even an irreverence to applaud, much 
more to second by any partisan clamour. They would as soon 
have thought of cheering the angel in the sun, or of rallying 
under him as the head of their faction. On one occasion, when 
He had fed the multitudes by a miracle, He saw that their 
national superstitions were excited, and that, regarding Him as 
the Messiah predicted in the Scriptures, they were about to 
take Him by force and make Him their king ; but this was a 
national feeling, not the feeling of a class. Its root was super- 
stition, not hatred. His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, 
attended by the acclamations of the multitude, if this be not 
one of the fables or myths which our modern criticism rejects, 






THE PERFECT ORIGINALITY OF HIS TEACHING. 213 

is yet no demonstration of popular faction or party animosity. 
Bobbing it of its mystical and miraculous character, as the in- 
augural of the Messiah, it has no real signification. In a few 
hours, after all, these hosannahs are hushed. Jesus is alone 
and forsaken, and the very multitudes He might seem to have 
enlisted, are crying "Crucify him !" On the whole, it can- 
not be said that Jesus was ever popular. He was followed 
at times by great multitudes of people, whose love of the 
marvellous worked on their superstitions, to draw them after 
Him. They came also to be cured of their diseases. They 
knew Him as their friend. But there was yet something in 
Him that forbade their low and malignant feelings gathering 
into a conflagration round Him. He presents indeed, an in- 
stance that stands alone in history, as God at the summit of 
the worlds, where a person has identified himself with a class, 
without creating a faction, and without becoming a popular 
character. 

Consider Him next as a teacher ; His method and manner, 
and the other characteristics of His excellence, apart from His 
doctrine. That will be distinctly considered in an another place. 

First of all, we notice the perfect originality and indepen- 
dence of His teaching. We have a great many men who are 
original, in the sense of being originators, within a certain 
boundary of educated thought. But the originality of Christ 
is uneducated. That he draws nothing from the stores of 
learning, can be seen at a glance. The impression we have in 
reading His instructions, justifies to the letter the language of 
His contemporaries, when they say, " This man hath never 
learned." There is nothing in any of His allusions or forms of 
speech that indicates learning.. Indeed, there is nothing in Him 
that belongs to His age or country — no one opinion, or taste, 
or prejudice. The attempts that have been made, in a way 
of establishing His mere natural manhood, to show that He 
borrowed His sentiments from the Persians and the eastern 
forms of religion, or that He had been intimate with the 
Essenes and borrowed from them, or that He must have been 
acquainted with the schools and religions of Egypt, deriving 
His doctrine from them — all attempts of the kind have so pal- 
pably failed, as not even to require a deliberate answer. If He 
is simp]y a man, as we hear, then He is most certainly a new 



214 NO DIALECTS, NO ART. 

and singular kind of man, never before heard of, one who 
visibly is quite as great a miracle in the world as if He were 
not a man. We can see for ourselves, in the simple directness 
and freedom of His teachings, that whatever He advances is 
from Himself. Shakspere, for instance, whom we name as 
being probably the most creative and original spirit the world 
has ever produced, one of the class, too, that are called self- 
made men, is yet tinged, in all his works, with human learning. 
His glory is, indeed, that so much of what is great in history 
and historic character, lives and appears in his dramatic crea- 
tions. He is the high-priest, we sometimes hear, of human 
nature. But Christ, understanding human nature so as to ad- 
dress it more skilfully than he, never draws from it historic 
treasures. He is the high-priest, rather, of the divine nature, 
speaking as one that has come out from God, and has nothing 
to borrow from the world. It is not to be detected by any 
sign, that the human sphere in which He moved imparted any 
thing to him. His teachings are just as full of divine nature, 
as Shakspere's of human. 

Neither does He teach by the human methods. He does not 
speculate about God as a school professor, drawing out conclu- 
sions by a practice on words, and deeming that the way of 
proof ; He does not build up a frame of evidence from below by 
some constructive process, such as the philosophers delight in ; 
but He simply speaks of God and spiritual things as one who 
has come out from Him, to tell us what He knows. And His 
simple telling brings us the reality ; proves it to us in its own 
sublime self-evidence ; awakens even the consciousness of it in 
our own bosom ; so that formal arguments or dialectic proofs 
offend us by their coldness, and seem, in fact, to be only opaque 
substances set between us and the light. Indeed, He makes 
even the world luminous by His words — fills it with an imme- 
diate and new sense of God, which nothing has ever been able 
to expel. The incense of the upper world is brought out in His 
garments, and flows abroad, as a perfume, on the poisoned air. 

At the same time, He never reveals the infirmity so commonly 
shown by human teachers, when they veer a little from their 
point, or turn their doctrine off by shades of variation, to catch 
the assent of multitudes. He never conforms to an expecta- 
tion, even of His friends. When they look to find a great pro- 
phet in Him, He offers nothing in the modes of the prophets, 



NO DIALECTS, NO ART. 215 

When they ask for places of distinction in His kingdom, He 
rebukes their folly, and tells them he has nothing to give, but 
a share in His reproaches and His poverty. When they look to 
see Him take the sword as the Great Messiah of their nation, 
calling the people to His standard, He tells them He is no war- 
rior and no king, but only a messenger of love to lost men ; one 
that has come to minister and die, but not to set up or restore 
the kingdom. Every expectation that rises up to greet Him is 
repulsed ; and yet, so great is the power of His manner, that 
multitudes are held fast, and cannot yield their confidence. 
Enveloped as He is in the darkest mystery, they trust Him still ; 
going after Him, hanging on His words, as if detained by some 
charmed influence, which they cannot shake off or resist. 
Never was there a teacher that so uniformly baffled every ex- 
pectation of His followers, never one that was followed so 
persistently. 

Again, the singular balance of character displayed in the 
teachings of Jesus, indicates an exception from the standing 
infirmity of human nature. Human opinions are formed under 
a law that seems to be universal. First, two opposite extremes 
are thrown up, in two opposite leaders or parties ; then a third 
party enters, trying to find what truth they both are endeavour- 
ing to vindicate, and settle thus a view of the subject that 
includes the truth and clears the one-sided extremes, which op- 
posing words or figures, not yet measured in their force, had 
produced. It results, in this manner, that no man, even the 
broadest in his apprehensions, is ever at the point of equilibrium 
as regards all subjects. Even the ripest of us are continually 
falling into some extreme, and losing our balance, afterward to 
be corrected by some other who discovers our error, or that of 
our school. 

But Christ was of no school or party, and never went to any 
extreme — words could never turn Him to a one-sided view of 
anything. This is the remarkable fact that distinguishes Him 
from any other known teacher of the world. Having nothing 
to work out in a word-process, but everything clear in the 
simple intuition of His superhuman intelligence, He never pushes 
Himself to any human eccentricity. It does not even appear 
that He is trying, as we do, to balance opposites and clear 
extravagances, but He does it, as one who cannot imagine a 
one-sided view of anything. He is never a radical, never a cod- 



21G HE IS CLEAR OF ALL SUPERSTITION. 

servative. He will not allow His disciples to deny Him before 
kings and governors, He will not let them renounce their allegi- 
ance to Caesar. He exposes the oppressions of the Pharisees in 
Moses' seat, but, encouraging no factious resistance, says — "Do 
as they command you." His position as a reformer was uni- 
versal — according to His principles almost nothing, whether in 
church or state, or in social life, was right; and yet He is thrown 
into no antagonism against the world. How a man will do, 
when he engages only in some one reform, acting from his own 
human force ; the fuming, storming frenzy, the holy rage and 
tragic smoke of his violence, how he kindles against opposition, 
grows bitter and restive because of delay, and finally comes to 
maturity in the character thoroughly detestable — all this we 
know. But Christ, with all the world upon His hands, and a 
reform to be carried in almost everything, is yet as quiet and 
cordial, and as little in the attitude of bitterness or impatience, 
as if all hearts were with Him, or the work already done ; so 
perfect is the balance of His feeling, so intuitively moderated is 
it by a wisdom not human. 

We cannot stay to sketch a full outline of this particular and 
sublime excellence, as it was displayed in His life. It will be 
seen as clearly in a single comparison or contrast, as in many, 
or in a more extended inquiry. Take, then, for an example, 
what may be observed in His open repugnance to all superstition, 
combined with His equal repugnance to what is commonly 
praised as a mode of liberality. He lived in a superstitious age, 
and among a superstitious people. He was a person of low 
education, and nothing, as we know, clings to the uneducated 
mind with the tenacity of a superstition. Lord Bacon, for ex- 
ample, a man certainly of the very highest intellectual training, 
was yet infested by superstitions, too childish to be named with 
respect, and which clung to him, despite of all his philosophy, 
even to his death. But Christ, with no learned culture at all, 
comes forth out of Galilee, as perfectly- clean of all the super- 
stitions of His time as if He had been a disciple from His child- 
hood of Hume or Strauss. " You children of superstition think," 
He says, " that those Galileans, whose blood Pilate mingled 
with their sacrifices, and those eighteen upon whom the tower 
in Siloam fell, must have been monsters to suffer such things. 
I tell you, nay ; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise 
perish." To another company He says — " You imagine, in your 



HE IS NO LIBERALIST. 217 

Pharisaic and legal morality, that the Sabbath of Moses stands 
in the letter ; but I tell you that the Sabbath is made for man, 
and not man for the Sabbath ; little honour, therefore, do you 
pay to God when you teach that it is not lawful to do good on 
this day. Your washings are a great point, you tithe herbs and 
seeds with a sanctimonious fidelity, would it not be as well for 
you teachers of the law, to have some respect to the weightier 
matters of justice, faith, and benevolence ? " Thus, while So- 
crates, one of the greatest and purest of human souls, a man 
who has attained to many worthy conceptions of God hidden 
from his idolatrous countrymen, is constrained to sacrifice a 
cock to iEsculapius, the uneducated Jesus lives and dies superior 
to every superstition of His time ; believing nothing because 
it is believed, respecting nothing because it is sanctified by 
custom and by human observance. Even in the closing scene 
of His life, we see His learned and priestly associates refusing 
to go into the judgment-hall of Caiaphas lest they should be 
ceremonially defiled and disqualified for the feast ; though 
detained by no scruple at all as regards the instigation of a 
murder ! While he on the other hand, pitying their delusions, 
prays for them from His cross — "Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." 

And yet Christ is no liberal, never takes the ground or boasts 
the distinction of a liberal among His countrymen, because it is 
not a part of His infirmity, in discovering an error here to fly 
to an excess there. His ground is charity, not liberality ; and 
the two are as wide apart in their practical implications, as ad- 
hering to all truth and being loose in all. Charity holds fast 
the minutest atoms of truth, as being precious and divine, of- 
fended by even so much as a thought of laxity. Liberality 
loosens the terms of truth ; permitting easily and with careless 
magnanimity variations from it ; consenting, as it were, in its 
own sovereignty, to overlook or allow them ; and subsiding 
thus, ere long, into a licentious indifference to all truth, and a 
general defect of responsibility in regard to it. Charity extends 
allowance to men; liberality to falsities themselves. Charity 
takes the truth to be sacred and immoveable ; liberality allows 
it to be marred and maimed at pleasure. How different the 
manner of Jesus in this respect from that unreverent, feeble 
laxity, that lets the errors be as good as the truths, and takes 
it for a sign of intellectual eminence, that one can be floated 



218 HIS SIMPLICITY IS PERFECT. 

comfortably in the abysses of liberalism. " Judge not," He says, 
in lioly charity, "that ye be not judged; " and again, in holy 
exactness, " Whosoever shall break, or teach to break, one of 
these least commandments, shall be least in the kingdom of 
God; " in the same way, " He that is not with us is against us;" 
and again, " He that is not against us is for us ; " in the same 
way also, "Ye tithe mint, anise, and cummin;" and again, 
" These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other 
undone ; " once more, too, in the same way, " He that is without 
sin, let him cast the first stone ; " and again, " Go and sin no 
more." So magnificent and sublime, so plainly divine, is the 
balance of Jesus. Nothing throws Him off the centre on which 
truth rests ; no prejudice, no opposition, no attempt to right a 
mistake, or rectify a delusion, or reform a practice. If this be 
human, I do not know for one what it is to be human. 

Again, it is a remarkable and even superhuman distinction 
of Jesus, that, while He is advancing doctrines so far transcend- 
ing all deductions of philosophy, and opening mysteries that 
defy all human powers of explication, He is yet able to set His 
teachings in a form of simplicity, that accommodates all classes 
of minds. And this, for the reason that He speaks directly to 
men's convictions themselves, without and apart from any 
learned and curious elaboration, such as the uncultivated can- 
not follow. No one of the great writers of antiquity had even 
propounded, as yet, a doctrine of virtue which the multitude 
could understand. It was taught as being re xaXbv (the good), 
or rb Kgstfov (the becoming), or something of that nature, as 
distant from all their apprehensions, and as destitute of motive 
power, as if it were a doctrine of mineralogy. Considered as a 
gift to the world at large, it was the gift of a stone, not of 
bread. But Jesus tells them directly, in a manner level to 
their understanding, what they want, what they must do and 
be, to inherit eternal life, and their inmost convictions answer 
to His words. Besides, his doctrine is not so much a doctrine 
as a biography, a personal power, a truth all motivity, a love 
walking the earth in the proximity of a mortal fellowship. 
He only speaks what goes forth as a feeling and a power in His 
life, breathing into all hearts. To be capable of His doctrine, 
only requires that the hearer be a human creature wanting to 
know the truth. 

Call Him then, who will, a man, a human teacher; what 



HE IS INTELLIGIBLE TO ALL CLASSES. 219 

human teacher ever came down thus upon the soul of the race, 
as a beam of light from the skies — pure light, shining directly 
into the visual orb of the mind, a light for all that live, a full 
transparent day, in which truth bathes the spirit as an element ? 
Others talk and speculate about truth, and those who can may 
follow ; but Jesus is the truth, and lives it, and, if He is a 
mere human teacher, He is the first who was ever able to find a 
form for truth at all adequate to the world's uses. And yet 
the truths He teaches out-reach all the doctrines of all the phi- 
losophers of the world. He excels them, a hundred-fold more, 
in the scope and grandeur of His doctrine, than He does in His 
simplicity itself. 

Is this human, or is it plainly divine ? If you will see what 
is human, or what the wisdom of humanity would ordain, it is 
this — exactly what the subtle and accomplished Celsus, the 
great adversary of Christianity in its original promulgation, 
alleges for one of his principal arguments against it. " Woollen 
manufacturers," he says, " shoemakers, and curriers, the most 
uneducated and boorish of men are zealous advocates of this 
religion ; men who cannot open their mouths before the learned, 
and who only try to gain over the women and children in fami- 
lies." 1 And again, what is only the same objection under a 
different form, assuming that religion, like a philosophy, must 
be for the learned, he says, " He must be void of understanding 
who can believe that Greeks and barbarians, in Asia, Europe, 
and Lybia — all nations to the ends of the earth — can unite in 
one and the same religious doctrine." 2 So also Plato says, 
" It is not easy to find the Father and Creator of all existence, 
and when He is found, it is impossible to make Him known to 
all." 3 "But exactly this," says Justin Martyr, "is what our 
Christ has effected by His power." And Tertullian also, glory- 
ing in the simplicity of the Gospel, as already proved to be a 
truly divine excellence, says, "Every Christian artisan has found 
God, and points Him out to thee, and, in fact, shows thee 
everything which is sought for in God, although Plato main- 
tains that the Creator of the world is not easily found, and 
that when He is found, He cannot be made known to all." 4 
Here then, we have Christ against Celsus, and Christ against 
Plato. These agree in assuming that we have a God whom only 

1 Neander's Memorials of Christian Life, p. 19. 2 Ibid. p. 33. 3 Timaeua. 
4 Neander's Memorials of Christian Life, p. 19. 



f>20 HIS MORALITY IS NOT ARTISTIC. 

the great can mount high enough in argument to know. Christ 
reveals a God whom the humblest artisan can teach, and all 
mankind embrace, with a faith that unifies them all. 

Again, the morality of Jesus has a practical superiority to 
that of all human teachers, in the fact that it is not an artistic 
or theoretically elaborated scheme, but one that is propounded 
in precepts that carry their own evidence, and are, in fact, great 
spiritual laws ordained by God, in the throne of religion. He 
did not draw long arguments to settle what the summum bonum 
is, and then produce a scheme of ethics to correspond. He 
did not go into the vexed question, what is the foundation of 
virtue ? and hang a system upon His answer. Nothing falls 
into an artistic shape, as when Plato or Socrates asks what kind 
of action is beautiful action ? reducing the principles of morality 
to a form as difficult for the uncultivated as the art of sculpture 
itself. Yet Christ excels them all in the beauty of His precepts, 
without once appearing to consider their beauty. He simply 
comes forth telling us, from God, what to do, without deducing 
anything in a critical way ; and yet, while nothing has ever yet 
been settled by the critics and theorizing philosophers, that 
could stand fast and compel the assent of the race even for a 
year, the morality of Christ is about as firmly seated in the con- 
victions of men, as the law of gravity in their bodies. 

He comes into the world full of all moral beauty, as God of 
physical ; and as God was not obliged to set Himself to a course 
of Eesthetic study, when He created the forms and landscapes of 
the world, so Christ comes to His rules by no critical practice 
in words. He opens His lips, and the creative glory of His 
mind pours itself forth in living precepts — Do to others as ye 
would that others should do to you — Blessed are the peace- 
makers — Smitten upon one cheek, turn the other — Kesist not 
evil — Forgive your enemies — Do good to them that hate you 
— Lend not, hoping to receive — Receive the truth as little 
children. Omitting all the deep spiritual doctrines He taught, 
and taking all the human teachers on their own ground, the 
ground of perceptive morality, they are seen at once to be 
meagre and cold ; little artistic inventions, gleams of high con- 
ceptions caught by study, having about the same relation to the 
Christian morality that a statue has to the flexibility, the self- 
active force, and flushing warmth of man, as he goes forth in 
the image of his Creator, to be the reflection of His beauty and 



NEVER ANXIOUS FOR SUCCESS. 221 

the living instrument of His will. Indeed, it is the very dis- 
tinction of Jesus that He teaches, not a verbal, but an original, 
vital, and divine morality. He does not dress up a moral 
picture, and ask you to observe its beauty, He only tells you 
how to live ; and the most beautiful characters the world has 
ever seen have been those who received and lived His precepts 
without once conceiving their beauty. 

Once more it is a high distinction of Christ's character, as 
seen in His teachings, that He is never anxious for the success 
of His doctrine. Fully conscious of the fact that the world is 
against Him, scoffed at, despised, hated, alone too in His cause, 
and without partisans that have any public influence, no man 
has ever been able to detect in Him the least anxiety for the 
final success of His doctrine. He is never jealous of contradic- 
tion. When His friends display their dulness and incapacity, 
or even when they forsake Him, He is never ruffled or disturbed. 
He rests on His words, with a composure as majestic as if He 
were sitting on the circle of the heavens. Now the conscious- 
ness of truth, we are not about to deny, has an effect of this 
nature in every truly great mind. But when has it had an 
effect so complete ? What human teacher, what great philoso- 
pher has not shown some traces of anxiety for his school, that 
indicated his weakness ; some pride in his friends, some dislike 
of his enemies, some traces of wounded ambition, when disputed 
or denied ? But here is a lone man, a humble, uneducated 
man, never schooled into the elegant fiction of an assumed com- 
posure, or practised in the conventional dignities of manners, 
and yet, finding all the world against Him, the world does not 
rest on its axle more firmly than He upon His doctrine. 
Questioned by Pilate what He means by truth, it is enough to 
answer — " He that is of the truth heareth my voice." If this 
be human, no other man of the race, we are sure, has ever 
dignified humanity by a like example. 

Such is Christ as a teacher. When has the world seen a 
phenomenon like this ; a lonely uninstructed youth, coming 
forth amid the moral darkness of Galilee, even more distinct 
from His age, and from everything around Him, than a Plato 
would be rising up alone in some wild tribe in Oregon, assum- 
ing thus a position at the head of the world, and maintaining it, 
for eighteen centuries, by the pure self-evidence of His life and 
doctrine ! Does He this bv the force of mere human talent or 



722 THE MORE FAMILIARLY KNOWN, 

genius ? If so, it is time that we begin to look to genius for 
miracles ; for there is really no greater miracle. 

There is yet one other and more inclusive distinction of the 
character of Jesus, which must not be omitted, and which sets 
Him off more widely from all the mere men of the race, just 
because it raises a contrast which is at once total and experi- 
mental. Human characters are always reduced in their emin- 
ence, and the impressions of awe they have raised, by a closer 
and more complete acquaintance. Weakness and blemish are 
discovered by familiarity ; admiration lets in qualifiers ; on 
approach, the halo dims a little. But it was not so with 
Christ. With His disciples, in closest terms of intercourse, 
for three whole years ; their brother, friend, teacher, monitor, 
guest, fellow-traveller ; seen by them under all the conditions 
of public ministry and private society, where the ambition of 
show, or the pride of power, or the ill-nature provoked by annoy- 
ance, or the vanity drawn out by confidence, would most cer- 
tainly be reducing Him to the criticism even of persons most 
unsophisticated, He is yet visibly raising their sense of His 
degree and quality ; becoming a greater wonder and holier mys- 
tery, and gathering to His person feelings of reverence and awe, 
at once more general and more sacred. Familiarity operates a 
kind of apotheosis, and the man becomes divinity, in simply 
being known. At first, He is the son of Mary and the Nazarene 
carpenter. Next, He is heard speaking with authority, as con- 
trasted even with the scribes. Next, He is conceived by some 
to be certainly Elias, or some one of the prophets, returned in. 
power to the world. Peter takes Him up, at that point, as 
being certainly the Christ, the great, mysterious Messiah ; only 
not so great that he is not able to reprove Him, when He begins 
to talk of being killed by His enemies ; protesting — " Be it far 
from thee, Lord." But the next we see of the once bold 
apostle, he is beckoning to another, at the table, to whisper the 
Lord and ask who it is that is going to betray Him ; unable 
himself to so much as invade the sacred ear of his Master with 
the audible and open question. Then, shortly after, when he 
comes out of the hall of Caiaphas, flushed and flurried with his 
threefold lie, and his base hypocrisy of cursing, what do we see 
but that, simply catching the Great Master's eye, his heart 
breaks down, riven with insupportable anguish, and is utterly 



THE DEEPER HE IS HELD IN REVERENCE. 223 

dissolved in childish tears ? And so it will be discovered in all 
the disciples, that Christ is more separated from them, and 
holds them in deeper awe, the closer He comes to them and the 
more perfectly they know Him. The same too is true of His 
enemies. At first, they look on Him only as some new fanatic, 
that has come to turn the heads of the people. Next, they 
want to know whence He drew His opinions, and His singular 
accomplishments in the matter of public address ; not being, as 
all that knew Him testify, an educated man. Next, they send 
out a company to arrest Him, and, when they hear Him speak, 
they are so deeply impressed that they dare not do it, but go 
back, under a kind of invincible awe, testifying — " Never man 
spake like this man." Afterward, to break some fancied spell 
there may be in Him, they hire one of His own friends to 
betray Him ; and even then, when they are come directly 
before Him and hear Him speak, they are in such tremor of 
apprehension, lest He should suddenly annihilate them, that 
they reel incontinently backward and are pitched on the ground. 
Pilate trembles visibly before Him, and the more because of 
His silence and His wonderful submission. And then, when 
the fatal deed is done, what do we see but that the multitude, 
awed by some dread mystery in the person of the crucified, 
return home smiting on their breasts for anguish, in the sense 
of what their infatuated and guilty rage has done. 

The most conspicuous matter, therefore, in the history of 
Jesus is, that what holds true in all our experience of men is 
inverted in Him. He grows sacred, peculiar, wonderful, divine, 
as acquaintance reveals Him. At first He is only a man, as 
the senses report him to be ; knowledge, observation, familiarity, 
raise Him into the God-man, He grows pure and perfect, more 
than mortal in wisdom, a being enveloped in sacred mystery, a 
friend to be loved in awe — dies into awe, and a sorrow that con- 
tains the element of worship ! And exactly this appears in the 
history, without any token of art, or even apparent consciousness 
that it does appear — appears because it is true. Probably no 
one of the evangelists ever so much as noticed this remarkable 
inversion of what holds good respecting men in the life and 
character of Jesus. Is this character human, or is it plainly 
divine ? 

We have now sketched some of the principal distinctions C3 



224 SUCH A CHARACTER 

the superhuman character of Jesus. We have seen Him unfold- 
ing as a flower, from the germ of a perfect youth ; growing up 
to enter into great scenes, and have His part in great trials ; 
harmonious in all with Himself and truth, a miracle of celestial 
beauty. He is a Lamb in innocence, a God in dignity ; reveal- 
ing an impenitent but faultless piety, such as no mortal ever 
attempted, such as, to the highest of mortals, is inherently im- 
possible. He advances the most extravagant pretensions, with- 
out any show of conceit, or even seeming fault of modesty. He 
suffers without affectation of composure, and without restraint of 
pride, suffers as no mortal sensibility can, and where, to mortal 
view, there was no reason for pain at all ; giving us not only an 
example of gentleness and patience in all the small trials of life, 
but revealing the depths even of the passive virtues of God, in 
His agony and the patience of His suffering love. He undertakes 
also a plan, universal in extent, perpetual in time, viz., to unite 
all nations in a kingdom of righteousness under God ; laying 
His foundations in the hearts of the poor, as no great teacher 
had ever done before, and yet without creating ever a faction, 
or stirring one partisan feeling in His followers. In His teach- 
ings He is perfectly original, distinct from His age and from all 
ages ; never warped by the expectation of His friends ; always 
in a balance of truth, swayed by no excesses, running to no 
oppositions or extremes ; clear of all superstition, and equally 
clear of all liberalism ; presenting the highest doctrines in the 
lowest and simplest forms ; establishing a pure, universal 
morality, never before established; and, with all His intense 
devotion to the truth, never anxious, perceptibly, for the success 
of His doctrine. Finally, to sum up all in one, He grows more 
great, and wise, and sacred, the more He is known — needs, in 
fact, to be known, to have His perfection seen. And this, we 
say, is Jesus the Christ ; manifestly not human, not of our world 
— some being who has burst into it, and is not of it. Call Him 
for the present that " Holy Thing," and say, " By this we be- 
lieve that thou earnest from God." 

Not to say that we are dissatisfied with this sketch, would be 
almost an irreverence of itself, to the subject of it. Who can 
satisfy himself with anything that he can say of Jesus Christ? 
We have seen how many pictures of the sacred person of Jesus 
by the first masters, but not one among them all that did not 
rebuke the weakness which could dare attempt an impossible 



DID ACTUALLY EXIST. 225 

subject. So of the character of Jesus. It is necessary for the 
holy interest of truth, that we should explore it, as we are best 
able ; but what are human thoughts and human conceptions on 
a subject that dwarfs all thought, and immediately outgrows 
whatever is conceived ? And yet, for the reason that we have 
failed, we seem also to have succeeded. For the more impos- 
sible it is found to be to grasp the character and set it forth, the 
more clearly is it seen to be above our range — a miracle and a 
mystery. 

Two questions now remain, which our argument requires to 
be answered. And the first is this — Did any such character, 
as this we have been tracing, actually exist ? Admitting that 
the character, whether it be fact or fiction, is such as we have 
seen it to be, two suppositions are open, either that such a 
character actually lived, and was possible to be described, be- 
cause it furnished the matter of the picture itself ; or else, that 
Jesus, being a merely human character as He lived, was adorned 
or set off in this manner, by the exaggerations of fancy and 
fable and wild tradition afterward. In the former alternative, 
we have the insuperable difficulty of believing that any so per- 
fect and glorious character was ever attained to by a mortal. 
If Christ was a merely natural man, then was He under all the 
conditions privative as regards the security of His virtue that 
we have discovered m man. He was a new created being, as 
such to be perfected in a character of steadfast holiness, only 
by the experiment of evil and redemption from it. We can be- 
lieve any miracle, therefore, more easily than that Christ was a 
man, and yet a perfect character such as here is given. In the 
latter alternative, we have four different writers, widely distin- 
guished in their style and mental habit — inferior persons, all, 
as regards their accomplishments, and none of them remarkable 
for gifts of genius — contributing their parts, and coalescing thus 
in the representation of a character perfectly harmonious with 
itself and with all — a character whose ideal no poet had 
been able to create, no philosopher, by the profoundest effort of 
thought, to conceive and set forth to the world. What is more, 
these four writers are, by the supposition, children all of credu- 
lity, retailing the absurd gossip, and the fabulous stories of an 
age of marvels, and yet, by some accident, they are found to 
have conceived and sketched the only perfect character known 



223 HE WAS AN ACTUALLY SINLESS CHARACTER. 

to mankind. To believe this requires a more credulous age 
than these writers ever saw. We fall back, then, upon our con- 
clusion, and there we rest. Such was the real historic charac- 
ter of Jesus. Thus He lived, and the character is possible to 
be conceived, because it was actualized in a living example. 
The only solution is that which is given by Jesus Himself, when 
He says — ■" I came forth from the Father, and am come into 
the world." 

The second question is this — Whether this character is to be 
conceived as an actually existing, sinless character, in the world ? 
That it is I maintain, because the character can no otherwise 
be accounted for in its known excellences. How was it that a 
simple-minded peasant of Galilee was able to put Himself in 
advance, in this manner, of all human teaching and excellence ; 
unfolding a character so peculiar in its combinations, and so 
plainly impossible to any mere man of the race ? Because His 
soul was filled with internal beauty and purity, having no spot 
or stain, distorted by no obliquity of view or feeling, lapsing 
therefore into no eccentricity or deformity. We can make out 
no account of Him so easy to believe, as that He was sinless ; 
indeed, we can make no other account of Him at all. He re- 
alized what are, humanly speaking, impossibilities ; for His soul 
was warped and weakened by no human infirmities, doing all 
in a way of ease and naturalness, just because it is easy for 
clear waters to flow from a pure spring. To believe that Jesus 
got up these high conceptions artistically, and then acted them, 
in spite of the conscious disturbance of His internal harmony, 
and the conscious clouding of His internal purity by sin, would 
involve a degree of credulity, and a want of perception, as re- 
gards the laws of the soul and their necessary action under sin, 
so lamentable as to be a proper subject of pity. We could 
sooner believe all the fables of the Talmud. 

Besides, if Jesus was a sinner, He was conscious of sin as 
all sinners are, and therefore was a hypocrite in the whole 
fabric of His character ; realizing so much of divine beauty in 
it, maintaining the show of such unfaltering harmony and 
celestial grace, and doing all this with a mind confused and 
fouled by the affectations acted for true virtues ! Such an 
example of successful hypocrisy would be itself the greatest 
miracle ever heard of in the world. 

Furthermore, if Jesus was a sinner, then He was, of course, 



SPECIFICATIONS AGAINST IT 227 

a fallen being ; down under the bondage, distorted by tbe per- 
versity of sin and its desolating effects, as men are. Tbe root 
therefore of all His beauty is guilt. Evil has broken loose in 
Him, He is held fast under evil. Bad thoughts are streaming 
through His soul in bad successions ; His tempers have lost 
their tune ; His affections have been touched by leprosy ; 
remorse scowls upon His heart ; His views have lost their 
balance and contracted obliquity ; in a word, He is fallen. Is 
it then such a being, one who has been touched, in this 
manner, by the demonic spell of evil — is it He that is unfold- 
ing such a character ? 

What then do our critics in the school of naturalism say of 
this character of Christ ? Of course they are obliged to say 
many handsome and almost saintly things of it. Mr Parker 
says of him, that " He unites in Himself the sublimest precepts 
and divinest practices, thus more than realizing the dream of 
prophets and sages ; rises free from all prejudice of His age, 
nation, or sect ; gives free range to the spirit of God in His 
breast; sets aside the law, sacred and true — honoured as it 
was, its forms, its sacrifice, its temple, its priests ; puts away 
the doctors of the law, subtle, irrefragable, and pours out a 
doctrine beautiful as the light, sublime as heaven, and true as 
Grod." * Again — as if to challenge for His doctrine the distinc- 
tion of a really superhuman excellence — "Try Him as we try 
other teachers. They deliver their word, find a few waiting for 
the consolation who accept the new tidings, follow the new 
method, and soon go beyond their teacher, though less mighty 
minds than he. Though humble men, we see what Socrates 
and Luther never saw. But eighteen centuries have past since 
the Sun of humanity rose so high in Jesus ; what man, what 
sect has mastered His thought, comprehend His method, and 
so fully applied it to life ! " 2 

Mr Hennel, who writes in a colder mood, but has, on the 
whole, produced the ablest of all the arguments yet offered on this 
side, speaks more cautiously. He says, " Whilst no human char- 
acter, in the history of the world, can be brought to mind which, 
in proportion as it could be closely examined, did not present 
some defects, disqualifying it for being the emblem of moral 
perfection, we can rest, with least check or sense of incongruity, 
on the imperfectly known character of Jesus of Nazareth." J 

1 Discourses of Religion, p. 294. 2 Ibid. p. 303. 3 Inquiry, p. 451. 



228 BY PARKER AND HENXEL. 

But the intimation here is that the character is not perfect ; 
it is only one in which the sense of perfection suffers "least 
check." And where is the fault cbargod ? Why, it is dis- 
covered that Jesus cursed a fig-tree, in which He is seen to be 
both angry and unreasonable. He denounced the Pharisees in 
terms of bitter animosity. He also drove the money-changers 
out of the temple with a scourge of rods, in which He is even 
betrayed into an act of physical violence. These and such like 
specks of fault are discovered, as they think, in the life of 
Jesus. So graceless in our conceit, have we of this age grown, 
that we can think it a point of scholarly dignity and reason to 
spot the only perfect beauty that has ever graced our world, 
with such discovered blemishes as these ! As if sin could ever 
need to be made out against a real sinner, in this small way of 
special pleading ; or as if it were ever the way of sin to err in 
single particles or homoeopathic quantities of wrong ! A more 
just sensibility would denounce this malignant style of criticism 
as a heartless and really low-minded pleasure in letting down the 
honours of goodness. 

In justice to Mr Parker, it must be admitted that he does 
not actually charge these points of history as faults or blemishes 
in the character of Jesus. And yet, in justice also, it must be 
added that he does compose a section under the heading — 
" The Negative Side, or the Limitations of Jesus," — where 
these, with other like matters, are thrown in by insinuation, as 
possible charges sometimes advanced by others. For himself, 
he alleges nothing positive, but that Jesus was under the 
popular delusion of His time, in respect to devils or demoniacal 
possessions, and that He was mistaken in some of His references 
to the Old Testament. What now is to be thought of such 
material, brought forward under such a heading, to flaw such 
a character ! Is it sure that Christ was mistaken in His 
belief of the foul spirits ? Is it certain that a sufficient mode 
of interpretation will not clear His references of mistake ? 
And so, when it is suggested, at second hand, that His invec- 
tive is too fierce against the Pharisees, is there no escape, but 
to acknowledge that, " considering His youth, it was a venial 
error ? " Or, if there be no charge but this, " at all affecting 
the moral and religious character of Jesus," should not a just 
reverence to one whose life is so nearly faultless, constrain us 
\o look for some more favourable construction that takes the 



THE MANLIER OPINION OF MILTON". 229 

solitary blemish away ? Is it true that invective is a necessary 
token of ill-nature ? Are there no occasions where even holi- 
ness will be most forward in it ? And when a single man 
stands out alone, facing a whole living order and caste, that 
rule the time — oppressors of the poor, hypocrites and pretend- 
ers in religion, corrupters of all truth and faith, under the 
names of learning and religion — is the malediction, the woe, 
that He hurls against them, to be taken as a fault of violence 
and unregulated passion ; or, considering what amount of force 
and public influence He dares to confront and set in deadly 
enmity against His person, is He rather to be accepted as 
God's champion, in the honours of a great and genuinely heroic 
spirit ? 

Considering how fond the world is of invective, how ready to 
admire the rhetoric of sharp wordsy how many speakers study 
to excel in the fine art of excoriation, how many reformers are 
applauded in vehement attacks on character, and win a great 
repute of fearlessness, just because of their severity, when, in 
fact, there is nothing to fear — when possibly the subject is a 
dead man, not yet buried — it is really a most striking tribute 
to the more than human character of Jesus, that we are found 
to be so apprehensive respecting Him in particular, lest His 
plain, unstudied, unrhetorical severities on this or that occa- 
sion, may imply some possible defect or " venal error " in Him. 
Why this special sensibility to fault in Him ? save that, by His 
beautiful and perfect life, He has raised our conceptions so high 
as to make, what we might applaud in a man a possible blemish 
in His divine excellence. 

The glorious old reformer and blind poet of Puritanism — 
vindicator of a free commonwealth and a free, unprelatical re- 
ligion — holds, m our view, a far worthier and manlier conception 
of what Christ does, in this example, and of what is due to all 
the usurpations of titled conceit and oppression in the world. 
With truly refreshing vehemence he writes — "For in times of 
opposition, when against new heresies arising, or old corrup- 
tions to be reformed, this cool, impassionate mildness of positive 
wisdom is not enough to damp and astonish the proud resistance 
of carnal and false doctors, then (that I may have leave to soar 
awhile, as the poets use) Zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arm- 
ing in complete diamond, ascends his fiery chariot, drawn by 
two blazing meteors figured like beasts, but of a higher breed 



230 THE CHANGE SUCH A CHARACTER HAS MADE 

than any the zodiac yields, resemhling those four which Ezekiel 
and St John saw, the one visaged like a lion, to express 
power, high authority, and indignation, the other of man, to 
cast derision and scorn upon perverse and fraudulent seducers 
— with them the invincible warrior, Zeal, shaking loosely the 
slack reins, drives over the heads of scarlet prelates and such 
as are insolent to maintain traditions, bruising their stiff necks 
under his flaming wheels. Thus did the true prophets of old 
combat with the false ; thus Christ, Himself the fountain of 
meekness, found acrimony enough to be still galling and vexing 
the prelatical Pharisees. But ye will say, these had immediate 
warrant from God to be thus bitter ; and I say, so much the 
plainer is it found that there may be a sanctified bitterness 
against the enemies of the truth." x 

And what other conception had Christ Himself of the mean- 
ing and import of His conduct in the matter in question ? He 
felt a zeal within Him, answering to Milton's picture, which 
could not, must not, be repressed. He knew it would be 
blamed, or set in charge against Him, by false critics and un- 
charitable doubters ; and He said, " The zeal of thy house hath 
eaten me up." And still it was, when rightly viewed, only a 
necessary outburst of that indignant fire, which is kindled in 
the sweet bosom of innocence, by the insolence of hypocrisy 
and oppression. 

I conclude, then, (1.) that Christ actually lived and bore 
the real character ascribed to Him in the history. And (2.) 
that He was a sinless character. How far off is He now from 
any possible classification in the genus humanity ! Having 
reached this point, we are ready to pass, in the next chapter, to 
the Christian miracles, and show that Christ, being Himself the 
greatest of all miracles, in his own person, did, in perfect con- 
sistency, and without creating any greater difficulty, work 
miracles. 

But before we drop a theme like this, let us note more dis- 
tinctly the significance of this glorious advent, and have our 
congratulations in it. This one perfect character has come into 
our world, and lived in it ; filling all the moulds of action, all 
the terms of duty and love, with His own divine manners, 
works, and charities. All the conditions of our life are raised 

1 Apology for Smeciymnus, sect. i. 



IS KADICAL AND FINAL. 231 

thus by the meaning He has shown to be in them, and the 
grace He has put upon them. The world itself is changed, and 
is no more the same that it was ; it has never been the same 
since Jesus left it. The air is charged with heavenly odours, 
and a kind of celestial consciousness, a sense of other worlds, is 
wafted on us in its breath. Let the dark ages come, let society 
roll backward and churches perish in whole regions of the earth, 
let infidelity deny, and, what is worse, let spurious piety dis- 
honour the truth ; still there is a something here that was not, 
and something that has immortality in it. Still our confidence 
remains unshaken, that Christ and His all- quickening life are 
in the world, as fixed elements, and will be to the end of time ; 
for Christianity is not so much the advent of a better doctrine 
as of a perfect character ; and how can a perfect character, once 
entered into life and history, be separated and finally expelled ? 
It were easier to untwist all the beams of light in the sky, sepa- 
rating and expunging one of the colours, than to get the cha- 
racter of Jesus, which is the real gospel, out of the world. Look 
ye hither, meantime, all ye blinded and fallen of mankind, a 
better nature is among you, a pure heart, out of some pure 
world, is come into your prison, and walks it with you. Do you 
require of us to show who He is, and definitely to expound His 
person ? We may not be able. Enough to know that He is 
not of us — some strange being out of nature and above it, 
whose name is Wonderful. Enough that sin has never touched 
His hallowed nature, and that He is a friend. In Him dawns 
a hope — purity has not come into our world, except to purify. 
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world ! 
Light breaks in, peace settles on the air, lo ! the prison walls 
are giving way — rise, let us go. 



232 CHRIST PERFORMED MIRACLES. 



CHAPTER XL 

CHRIST PERFORMED MIRACLES. 

It used to be the practice of theologians to cite the miracles of 
Christ as proofs of His doctrine, and even of the gospel history ; 
not observing that the conditions of the question are entirely 
changed since the days of the first witnesses. To the contem- 
poraries and attendants on the ministry of Jesus, He might well 
enough be approved of God, by miracles and signs ; for, being 
themselves eye-witnesses, they could easily be sure of the facts. 
But to those who saw them not, to us who have heard of them 
only by the report of history, they can never be cited as proofs, 
because the main thing to be settled with us is the verity of the 
facts themselves. The gospel history, instead of being attested 
to us by the miracles, has them rather as a heavy burden rest- 
ing on its own credibility. Doubtless it is true that, if such a 
being as Christ were to come into the world, on such an errand 
as the gospel reports, we should look to see him verify his mis- 
sion by miracles, and without the miracles we should suspect 
the authenticity of his pretensions. As far, therefore, as the 
miracles sort with the person of Christ and his mission, as set 
forth in His gospels, there is a harmony of parts in the history, 
that is one of the evidences of its truth. It is even a necessary 
evidence, yet scarcely a sufficient evidence by itself. We still 
require to be certified that the miracles reported are facts. This 
done, Christianity, as a supernatural revelation of God, is estab- 
lished. Until then, the miracles are, it must be admitted, a 
subtraction from its rational evidence ; even though the subject- 
matter of the history be incomplete, and so far wanting in 
rational evidence, without them. 

The ground taken against the Christian miracles by Spinoza, 



MIRACLES DEFINED. 233 

in which he is followed by Mr Parker, is this : that they dis- 
honour God, as involving the opinion that His great revelation 
in nature is insufficient, and needs afterward to be amended, 
and that, in doing it by miracles, He is conceived to overturn 
His own laws, and break up the order of His work. 

Hume was an atheist, and, of course, had nothing to say of 
God, or the confusion of His plan. Assuming that we know 
nothing save by experience, he argued that we know by experi- 
ence the fallibility of all testimony, and the uniformity of the 
laws of nature. Hence that no amount of testimony can justify 
our belief in a miracle ; for we have, and must have, a stronger 
faith in the uniformity of the laws of nature, than we can have 
in any testimony. 

Assisted in this sceptical tendency by modern science, which 
has set the laws of nature, for the time, in such prominence, as 
to operate a real suppression of thought in the spiritual direc- 
tion, Dr Strauss assumes the incredibility of miracles, without 
much care for the argument, and bases on that assumption his 
deliberate and powerful assault upon the gospel history. 

Against these and similar modes of denial, which distinguish 
the naturalistic tendencies of our time, we now undertake, 
assisted by the material already prepared in the preceding chap- 
ters, to establish the fact of the Christian miracles. Our argu- 
ment will not prove every one of them, or, in fact, any particular 
one ; for the question will still be open, for such as choose to 
engage in it, whether this, or that, or some of them, are not to 
be discredited for particular reasons, which display the mistake 
or credulity of the narrators. We shall only show that Christ 
wrought miracles, which is the great point in issue. 

Let us endeavour, then, first of all, as a matter on which 
everything depends, to settle what is to be understood by a 
miracle, or what a miracle is. 

We have raised a clear distinction already between nature 
and the supernatural; viz., that nature is the chain of cause 
and effect — that coming to pass which is determined by the 
laws of cause and effect in things. The supernatural is that 
which acts on the chain of cause and effect, from without the 
chain ; not being caused in its action, but acting from itself, 
under no conditions of previous causality. The distinction of 
nature and the supernatural is the distinction, in fact, between 



234 THREE ELEMENTS INCLUDED. 

propagations of causality and original causality, between things 
and powers. In this view, man, as a power, together with all 
created spirits, good and bad, is a supernatural being co-ordinate 
with (rod, in so far as he acts freely and morally. If he moves 
but a limb in his freedom, he acts on the lines of cause and 
effect in nature ; and if, in moving that limb, he has committed 
a murder, we blame him for it, and bring him to a felon's 
punishment ; simply because he was not caused to do the deed, 
by any efficient cause back of him, but did it of himself ; or, as 
the common law has it, " by malice aforethought." 

But we do not call these free moral actions of man miracles 
because they are common, and because there is no attribute of 
wonder connected with them. What then is a miracle ? It 
is a supernatural act, an act, that is, which operates on the 
chain of cause and effect in nature from without the chain, 
producing in the sphere of the senses, some event that moves 
our wonder, and evinces the presence of a more than human 
power. Observe three points. (1.) It is by some action upon, 
not in, the line of cause and effect; (2.) it is in the sphere of 
the senses, for, though the regeneration of a soul may require 
as great power as the raising of Lazarus, it is yet no proper 
miracle, because it is no sign to the senses ; (3.) it must be 
understood to evince a superhuman power, otherwise feats of 
jugglery and magic would be miracles. We commonly suppose, 
in miracles, a deific power, though sometimes we refer them to 
a subordinate, angelic, or demoniacal power ; as when we speak 
of signs and lying wonders, that are wrought by no divine 
agency. The word miracle, which is a Latin diminutive, 
properly denotes some limited or isolated fact that we wonder 
at. It takes the diminutive form probably because it relates 
to something parcelled off from the whole of nature, which, in 
that view, is small or partial. The Scripture uses several terms 
or names to denote such events, calling them "signs," "wonders," 
" powers ;" and once, nugabo^a, translated " strange things." 

To make our definition yet more exact, or to clear it yet 
farther of ambiguity, let us add the following negatives : — 

1. A miracle is not, as our definition itself implies, any 
wonderful event, developed under the laws of nature, or of 
natural causation. Some religious teachers have taken this 
ground, suggesting that nature was originally planned or per- 
formed, so as to bring out these particular surprises at the 



FOUR MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED. 235 

points where they occur. Doubtless God's original scheme, 
taken as a whole, was so planned or performed ; but that 
scheme included more than mere nature, viz., all supernatural 
agencies and events, and even His own works or actions in the 
higher, vaster field of the supernatural. But it is a very differ- 
ent thing to imagine that nature is everything, and that the 
surprises are all developments of nature. 

2. A miracle is no event that transpires singly, or apart from 
system ; for the real system of God is not nature, as we have 
seen, but that vaster whole of government and order, including 
spirits, of which nature is only a very subordinate and compara- 
tively insignificant member. In this higher view, a miracle is 
in such a sense part of the integral system of God, that it 
would be no perfect system without the miracle. Hence all 
that is said against miracles, as a disruption of order in God's 
kingdom — therefore incredible and dishonourable to God — is 
without foundation. 

3. A miracle is no contradiction of our experience. It is 
only an event that exceeds the reach of our experience. We 
have a certain experience of what is called nature and the 
order of nature. But what will be the effect, in the field of 
nature, when the supernatural order meets it, or streams into 
it, we cannot tell ; our experience here is limited to the 
results or effects that may be wrought by our own supernatural 
agency. What the supernatural divine, or angelic or demonic 
agency may be able to do in it, we know not. Therefore, all 
that is alleged by Mr Hume falls to the ground. It may be 
more difficult to believe, or more difficult to prove such facts, 
wrought by such agencies ; but not because they are contrary, 
in any proper sense to our experience. They are only more 
strange to our experience. 

4. A miracle is no suspension or violation of the laws of 
nature. Here is the point where the advocates of miracles 
have so fatally weakened their cause by too large a statement. 
The laws of nature are subordinated to miracles, but they are 
not suspended or discontinued by them. If I raise my arm, 
I subordinate the law of gravity and produce a result against 
the force of gravity, but the law or the force is not discontinued. 
On the contrary, it is acting still, at every moment, as uniformly 
as if it held the arm to its place. All the vital agencies main- 
tdn a chemistry of their own, that subordinates the laws of in- 



236 FOUR MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED. 

organic chemistry. Nothing is more familiar to us, than the 
fact of a subordination of natural laws. It is the great game of 
life, also, to conquer nature and make it what, of itself, by its 
own laws of cause and effect, it is not. We raised the supposi- 
tion, on a former occasion, of another physical universe, separated 
from the existing universe, and placed beyond a gulf, across 
which no one eSect ever travels. If now that other universe 
were swung up side by side with this, it would instantly change 
all the action of this — not by suspending its laws, but by an 
action that subordinates and varies its action. So the realm of 
spirits is a realm that is permitted, or empowered to come down 
upon this other, which is called nature, and play its activity 
upon it, according to the plan God has before adjusted ; but this 
activity suspends no law, breaks no bond of system. Nature 
stands fast, with all her terms of cause and effect, as before, a 
constant quantity, interposed by God to be a medium between 
supernatural beings in their relative actions. They are to have 
their exercise in it, and upon it, and so, by their activity, they 
are to make a moral acquaintance with each other ; men with 
men, all created spirits with all, God with creatures, creatures 
with God; acquaintance also with the need of laws by the 
wrongs they suffer, and with their own bad mind by seeing 
what wrongs they do ; so by their whole experience to be 
trained, corrected, assimilated in love, and finished in holy 
virtue. There is no more a suspension of the laws of nature 
when God acts than when we do ; for nature is, by her very 
laws, subjected to His and our uses, to be swayed, and modi- 
fied, and made a sign-language, so to speak, of mutual acquaint- 
ance between us. 

By these four negatives, distinctly premised, we seem to have 
cleared the faith of miracles of all needless incumbrances, and, 
in that way, to have cut off the principal objections urged against 
their credibility. Before proceeding, however, to inquire after 
the more positive proofs of the Christian miracles, it may be 
well to glance at the positions taken by some of the principal 
advocates of naturalism, and especially to the admissions they 
are sometimes constrained to make. 

Thus it is conceded by Mr Hennel, that " it seems beyond 
the power of intellect to decide a priori, whether a miraculous 
revelation, or instruction through nature alone, be more suitable 






ADMISSIONS MADE BY OPPOSERS OF MIRACLES. 237 

to the character of God." 1 There is then no inherent absurdity 
in the supposition, that God, as the spring of scientific verity 
and order in His works, should yet perform miracles. What- 
ever doubts we suffer of their reality must be grounded in defects 
of historic evidence. This is a large concession. 

Coincidently with this, Mr Parker admits, that " there is no 
antecedent objection" to miracles, if only they are wrought " in 
conformity with some law out of our reach." 2 And exactly this 
is true of all supernatural divine agency, as we have abundantly 
shown — only the laws of God's supernatural agency are laws of 
reason, or such as respect His last end, and the best way of 
compassing that end ; which laws are yet so stable and so 
exactly universal, that He will always do exactly the same 
things, in exactly the same circumstances or conditions. 

The admissions of Dr Strauss are even more remarkable. 
We have already referred to his admission that one " kingdom 
in nature many intrench on another," and that " human free- 
dom " may, in this way, modify "natural development." 3 
Ask the question accordingly, wherein is it less credible that 
the freedom of God may do as much ? and we have, as the 
necessary answer, what contains the whole doctrine of miracles. 
Doubtless it will be added that man belongs to " the totality of 
things," and that God does not; that man is in "the vast circle" 
of nature and natural laws, and that God is not. But the 
answer, we reply, is grounded in an assumption, as regards man, 
that is justified by no evidence, and is contradicted even by the 
evidence of consciousness. Man, as a being of free will, is no 
part of nature at all, no arc in the circle of nature. He belongs, 
we have abundantly shown, to a higher kingdom and order ; 
having it for his prime distinction that he acts supernaturally, 
acts upon the circle of nature from without, and never as being 
determined by the causalities of nature. All the free intelli- 
gences of the universe are acting on the circle of nature in this 
manner, and why then may not God Himself ? 

But we have another concession that is even more to our 
purpose. Adverting to the fact that the ancient peoples, 
especially of the East, begin at God, and see all changes take 
their spring in His immediate agency, while the moderns 
begin at things, and see all changes come to pass, under 

1 Inquiry, p. 9G. 2 Discourses of Religion, pp. 269, 270. 

3 Life of Jesus, vol. i. p. 72. 



238 ADMISSIONS MADE BY 

natural laws, lie distinctly rejects the latter, as being, by itself 
any complete and sufficient view of the subject. ' It must be 
confessed," he says, " on nearer investigation, that this modern 
explanation, although it does not exactly deny the existence of 
God, yet puts aside the idea of Him, as the ancient view did 
the idea of the world. For this is, as it has often been well 
remarked, no longer a God and Creator, but a mere finite 
artist, who acts immediately upon his work only during its 
first production, and then leaves it to itself ; who becomes 
excluded with his full energy from one particular sphere of 
existence." 1 

There is then, he admits, no validity in the modern opinion 
which assumes that all things take place by force of second 
causes, and without an immediate divine agency. Indeed he 
explicitly acknowledges, on the next page, that " our idea of 
God requires an immediate, and our idea of the world a mediate 
divine operation." He only manages to quite take away the 
value of the admission, by raising the question, how to combine 
or settle the relative adjustment of the mediate and immediate 
operation, and by so conducting the process as to come out in 
the conclusion, that " God acts upon the world as a whole 
immediately ; but on each part, only by means of His action 
on every other part," that is to say, " by the laws of nature." 
And so miracles are excluded. 

But there is a mistake here, first in his premises, and next 
in his conclusion. It is not true that our " idea of the world" 
requires us to hold the faith of a merely " mediate " action of 
God upon it. Exactly contrary to this, the idea of the world, 
taken as disordered by sin, demands His immediate action. It 
is not only necessary in order to realize the idea of God, or 
make room for His practical existence, that we conceive Him 
to have some kind of immediate action, but the world, under 
its disorders, asks for it, and waits for the restoring grace of 
it. It is very true that if the world, as an organized frame of 
scientific order, under second causes, were in no way disturbed 
by our immediate action upon it, there would seem to be no 
demand or even place for an immediate operation of God. 
Why should the watchmaker turn the hands of his watch 
directly by the key, when he has made them to go mediately 
by the spring ? But this is not any true statement of the 

1 Life of Jesus, vol. i. p. 72. 



OPPOSERS OF MIRACLES. 239 

question ; the world is in no such state of primal and ideal 
order. Making due account of sin, as our philosophers, alas ! 
never do, we have a condition that, for order's sake, asks an 
intervention of God's supernatural and powerful hand. The 
world, in fact, was made, including man, as a thing necessarily 
unperfect ; made to want, thus, interventions and immediate 
operations, to carry it on and bring it out, in the final realiza- 
tion of its perfected ends. Even as a watch, being no infallible 
machine, is submitted to external action by means of the 
regulator ; and as, without a regulator prepared for the imme- 
diate touch of some hand, it would be no manageable or service- 
able thing, so it is the particular merit of nature, that it is 
originally ordered to receive the touch of free-will forces from 
without ; first of such as are human, and then, as the only 
sufficient power of conservation, of such as are divine. 

The error referred to, in the conclusion at which Dr Strauss 
arrives in his analysis, is too obvious to require a particular 
refutation. Enough thai any one but a mere words-man will 
find some difficulty in conceiving how God should act " imme- 
diately on the whole " of the world, without acting immediately 
on some one or all of the parts. Acting in or upon some one 
wheel of a watch, the whole action of the watch will be affected ; 
so when every wheel is acted on ; but what is that immediate 
action upon the whole of a watch that does not immediately act 
on any one of the parts ? Besides, the argument by which all 
particular action is excluded, would require that God should 
never have begun to act immediately anywhere. Creation is 
thus philosophically impossible. God, therefore, has had no- 
thing to do, but to be chained to the wheel from eternity, acting 
immediately on some eternal whole that is self-existent as He ; 
allowed to begin nothing, vary no part or particle, held by a 
doom to His eternal totality. Is it this which "the idea of 
God " requires, this by which our idea of God is fulfilled ? 

On this particular question, however, of an immediate and a 
mediate divine agency, we are not disposed to spend a great 
deal of time. We strongly suspect there is a sophism in the 
question, much as if the inquiry were whether God, who is 
above time, acts in this tense or the other ? All that we can 
say with confidence on this subject appears to be that, so far 
as we can see, it is necessary for us, under conditions of time, 
to hold the two conceptions of a nature set on foot in some 



240 THE MEDIATE AND IMMEDIATE, 

past time, and a divine force acting supernaturally upon it new ; 
and that God so distributes His action or plan, as to give us 
what will thus accommodate our finite conditions. Nature, 
practically viewed, and wholly apart from speculation, is a kind 
of third quantity between us and God, to be reciprocally acted 
on ; so that we can see what we are doing toward Him, and 
what He is doing toward us. It is words to the great life-talk 
of duty, a medium of action and reaction that interprets to us 
the divine relationship in which we stand. Laying hold of 
nature by her laws and causes, to build, produce, possess, and 
also to frame a scientific knowledge, we get a footing and a 
basis of reaction for our freedom. If we descend into sin, we 
set the causes of nature in courses of retributive action, and 
this reveals what is in our sin. Then, as God will redeem us, 
we are able to see a force entered into nature which is not 
nature's force. One may be as truly a divine force as the 
other, but they are yet so ordered as to be relative forces to our 
apprehension, acting one upon or into the other. In all Chris- 
tian experience, and in times of prayer, we get a divine help 
entered into our state which we apprehend distinctly, and with 
a conscious intelligence, as we could not if all divine agency 
were homogeneous. But while we need so manifestly to think 
God's agency in this manner, under a twofold distribution, it 
is by no means certain that He, from His height of eternity, 
classifies His action under our finite categories of tense and re- 
lative causality. It is very certain, as we have already shown, 
that nature is not to Him the universal system. All His 
doings, whether past or present, mediate or immediate, rest in 
laws of reason determined by His end ; and it is in these, not 
in the physical laws magnified by science, that He beholds the 
real system of His universe. In this view, nature may be to 
Him a kind of continuous creation, coalescing, as it flows from 
His will, in a common stream with His supernatural action, 
and crystallizing with it in the unity of His end. Enough that 
to us a conception of His work is given which better meets our 
finite conditions. Enough that we may call it natural and 
supernatural, cause and effect and miracle, mediate and imme- 
diate ; and that so, without any real error, we may have our 
human want accommodated. The twofold distinction is per- 
mitted as a practically valid form of thought, without which 
we could have no sense of relationship with God under the ex- 



POSSIBLY A HUMAN DISTINCTION. 241 

perience of life ; and without which nothing done by Him, as 
prior to our sin, in the way of judicial arrangement, or posterior, 
in the way of recovery, could ever be intelligible. 

Having noted some of the admissions of the naturalizing 
teachers, we will now proceed to adduce some proofs of the 
Christian miracles, or rather to gather up the proofs already 
supplied by the course of our argument itself, 

1. We have seen that man himself acts supernaturally in all 
his free accountable actions. That is, he acts upon the chain 
of cause and effect in nature", uncaused himself, in his action. 
This is no miracle, but it involves all the speculative difficulties 
encountered in miracles. These are nothing but acts, every 
way similar to ours, of God or superhuman agents on the lines 
of causes in nature, only different in effect or degree as they are 
different beings from us. We have only to suppose that nature 
is, by her very laws, submitted to them as to us, and that is 
the end of all difficulty. We may wonder at their manifestations 
and not at our own ; but our wonder alters nothing, creates no 
derangement of nature, any more than if we were so familiar 
with such doings as to experience no wonder at all. If the sun 
darkens, or the earth shudders with Christ in His death, that 
sympathy of nature is just as appropriate for Him as it is for 
us, that our skin should blush or our eye distil its tears when 
our guilt is upon us, or our repentances dissolve us. It is not 
cause and effect that blushes or that weeps, but it is that cause 
and effect are touched by sentiments which connect with our 
freedom. Nature blushes and weeps, because she was origin- 
ally submitted so far to our freedom, or made to be touched by 
our actions ; but she could not even to eternity raise a blush or 
a tear of contrition if we did not command her. 

2. Consider how near the fact of sin, which is the act of a 
supernatural human agency, approaches to the rank of a miracle. 
Sin, as we have shown in a previous chapter, is the acting of a 
free being as he was not made to act ; for if it were the acting 
of a being under laws of cause and effect established by God, 
then it would be no sin. God made sin possible, just as He 
made all lying wonders possible, but He never made it a fact, 
never set anything in His plan to harmonize with it. Therefore 
it enters the world as a forbidden fact against everything that 
God has ordained. And then what follows ? A general dis- 



242 ARGUMENTS FOR MIRACLES. 

ruption of everything that belongs to the original paradisiac 
order of the creation. The soul itself begins at the first mo- 
ment to feel the terrible action of it, and becomes a crazed and 
disordered power. The crystal form of the spirit is broken, 
and it is become an opaque element, a living mal-formation. 
The conscience is battered and trampled in its throne. The 
successions of the thoughts have become disorderly and wild, 
the tempers are out of tune, the passions kindle into guilty 
fires, and burn with a consuming heat, the imagination is a 
hell of painful, ugly phantoms, the body a diseased thing, 
scarred by deformity. Society is out of joint, and even the 
physical world itself, as we have shown, is marred in every part 
by abortions, deformities visible, and discords audible, so as no 
more to represent the perfect beauty of its author. What devil 
now of confusion has thrown a magnificent creature, and a 
realm of glorious natural order, into so great confusion ? 
Where are those sovereign laws of beauty and order which they 
tell us nothing can disturb ? We care not to call sin a miracle. 
We only say that no one miracle, nor all miracles, ever heard 
of or reported, can be imagined to have wrought a thousandth 
part of the disturbance actually wrought by sin, the sin of man- 
kind. Whoever then has yielded to the really shallow dogma 
of rationalism, which teaches that cause and effect in nature must 
have their way, fulfilling causes of ideal harmony, and forever 
excluding the possibility of a miracle, need not go far to find a 
corrective. Let it be distinctly noted then — 

3. That what we call nature, and what the mere naturalists 
are so bold to assume cannot be mended or altered by any 
interference of miracle, does, in fact, no longer exist. Sin has 
so far unmade the world that the divine order is broken. The 
laws are all in action as at the first, never discontinued or 
annihilated, but the false fact or lying wonder of sin, has made 
false conjunctions of causes, and set the currents of causality in 
a kind of malign activity, which displaces for ever the proper 
order of nature. It is with nature as with a watch in which 
some wheel has been made eccentric in its motions by abuse. 
The whole machine is in disorder, though no one part is want- 
ing. It is no longer a watch or time-keeper, but a jumble of 
useless and absurd motions. So nature, under sin, is no longer 
nature, but a condition of unnature. Yet this it is that our 
scientific naturalism assumes to be the perfect order; which 



ARGUMENTS FOR MIRACLES. 243 

not even God may touch by a miracle, without a breach of its 
integrity ! It is nature, they say, and God who is the God of 
nature, will not, cannot touch it, without either consenting to 
its original imperfection, or producing a general wreck of its 
perfection. Why, the perfection of it is gone long ages ago ! 
From the moment, when a substance or power located in it, 
viz., man, began to act as he was not made to act, that is to 
sin, it has been a disordered fabric of necessity. No longer 
does it represent only the beautiful mind of its Author, but 
quite as often the shame, and discord, and deformity consequent 
upon sin. And no man, we are sure, who regards it for a mo- 
ment, will have any the least apprehension that a miracle 
wrought in it by its Author can be anything but a hopeful sign 
for its systematic integrity. That He would never work a 
miracle in nature proper, as it came from His hands, we are 
quite willing to admit ; but since nature is gone, fallen with 
man in the bad experiment of evil, and since it was originally 
designed to be acted on, both by man and by Himself, in a 
process of training that carries him through a fall, and brings 
him out in redemption, we see nothing to discourage the faith 
of miracles, but much to prove the contrary. This brings us to 



4. Of the fact that, without a putting forth of the divine 
power, in some action sovereign as miracle, there can be no 
reconstruction of the proper order of nature, no recovery of the 
broken state of man. The laws of nature, without him and 
within, are now running perversely as laws of sin and death. 
The crystalline order of souls and of the world is broken, and 
it is plain, at a glance, that no being but God, the Almighty, 
can avail to restore the disturbance. The laws have no power 
of self-rectification, any more than the laws of a disordered 
machine have power to cure the disorder by running. As 
certainly, therefore, as sinners are to be restored, as certainly, 
that is, as that all God's ends in the world and human exist- 
ence are not to fail, there will be, must be, miracles or puttings 
forth, at least, of a divinely supernatural power. Every thing 
in the whole creation is groaning and travailing in the expectation 
of so great a redemption. The very plan was originally, as we 
have shown, to bring out the grand results of spiritual order and 
character intended, by means of a double administration ; that is 
by the creation and the new- creation, the creation disordered by 



244 ARGUMENTS FOR MIRACLES. 

sin, the new- creation raised up and glorified by grace and its 
miracles. Go back then a moment — 

5. To things precedent and see what considerations and facts 
may be gathered there. First, we discover what the natural- 
ists and men chiefly occupied with matters of science so gene- 
rally overlook, the fact that nature never was, and never was 
designed to be, the whole empire of God ; that the final ends 
of God are not contained in nature at all ; and that it was 
appointed by Him to be only a means to His ends, a mere field 
for the training of His children. In this view spiritual crea- 
tures, creatures supernatural, compose the real body and sub- 
stance of His empire, and to these nature was to be subjected, 
by these to be played upon in the great life-battle of their 
trial — disordered by them and restored by Himself. Accord- 
ingly, it is not implied that the divine system is, in any degree, 
marred or broken by His miracles. On the contrary, every 
thing done by Him will be done as fulfilling that system. There 
is no change, no reconsideration, no breach of unity, but a doing 
of precisely that which was set down to be done at the first. He 
proceeds, in fact, by laws predetermined, in His miracles them- 
selves ; of course by a perfect and orderly system. 

Observe, again, the fact that God has either never done or 
can do anything, or else that He may as well be supposed to do 
a miracle now. To create anything that was not, to set any 
plan on foot that was not on foot, was itself a miracle that 
involved all the difficulties of a miracle subsequent. To create 
a scheme called nature and retire to see it run, is itself a 
miracle, and we may just as well suppose that He continues to 
work as that He so began. He has either never done anything, 
or else He may do something now. There is no way to escape 
the faith of miracles and hold the faith of a personal God and 
Creator. It is only pantheism, or what is not far different, 
atheism, that can rationally and consistently maintain the im- 
possibility of miracles. Any religion too absolute to allow the 
faith of miracles, is a religion whose God never did anything, 
and is therefore no God. 

Again, it is discovered and proved, by science itself, that God 
has performed, at least, one miracle, or class of miracles, in the 
world, previous to the date of human existence. We speak of 
the great geological discovery that new races of animals and 
plants have, at different times, been created, and finally man 



THE GRAND ARGUMENT /45 

himself. The mere metallic earth, which, at one time, was the 
all of nature, did not make or sprout up into any form of life. 
That would be a greater miracle, done by nature, than the 
raising of Lazarus — as great as if the earth had raised him, yea, 
as great as if the earth had invented and shaped him, and 
breathed intelligence into him. Here then is proved to us, out 
of the infallible registers of the rocks, that God had sometime 
wrought a miracle upon nature. And,, as we said just now, one 
miracle proved, decides the question ; for there may as well be 
a thousand as one. We pass now — 

6. To the subject of our last chapter, where we meet a proof 
that concludes all argument. We there showed, by a full and 
critical examination of the character of Jesus, that He is plainly 
not a human character, and cannot be rightly classed in the 
genus humanity ; also, that the character is not an invention, 
but that such a person must have lived, else He could not be 
described ; also, that being such, in external description, He 
must have been, what He Himself claimed to be, a sinless being. 
Here, then, is a being who has broken into the world, and is 
not of it ; one who has come out from God, and is even an ex- 
pression to us of the complete beauty of God — such as He 
should be, if He actually was, what He is affirmed to be, the 
Eternal Word of the Father incarnate. Did He work miracles ? 
this is now the question that waits for our decision — did He 
work miracles ? By the supposition, He is superhuman. By 
the supposition, too, He is in the world as a miracle. Agreeing 
that the laws of nature will not be suspended, any more than 
they are by our own supernatural action, will they yet be so sub- 
ordinated to His power as to permit the performance of signs 
and wonders, in which we may recognize a superhuman force ? 
Since He is shown to be a superhuman being, manifestly nature 
will have a relation to Him, under and by her own laws, such as 
accords with His superhuman quality, and it will be very singular 
if He does not do superhuman things ; nay, it is even philoso- 
phically incredible that He should not. An organ is a certain 
instrument, curiously framed or adjusted in its parts, and pre- 
pared to yield itself to any force which touches the keys. An 
animal runs back and forth across the key-board, and produces 
a jarring, disagreeable jumble of sounds. Thereupon he begins 
to reason, and convinces himself that it is the nature of the 
instrument to make such sounds, and no other. But a skilful 



216 THAT CHRIST IS A MIRACLE, 

player comes to the instrument, as a higher presence, endowed 
with a super- animal sense and skill. He strikes the keys, and 
all-melodious and heavenly sounds roll out upon the enchanted 
air. Will the animal now go on to reason that this is impos- 
sible, incredible, because it violates the nature of the instrument, 
and is contrary to his own experience ? Perhaps he may, and 
men may sometimes not be wiser than he. But the player him- 
self, and all that can think it possible for him to do what the 
animal cannot, will have no doubt that the music is made by the 
same laws that made the jargon. Just so Christ, to whose will 
or touch our mundane system is pliant as to ours, may be able 
to execute results through its very laws, subordinated to Him, 
which to us are impossible. Nay, it would be itself a contra- 
diction of all order and fit relation, if He could not. To suppose 
that a being out of humanity will be shut up within all the 
limitations of humanity, is incredible and contrary to reason. 
The very laws of nature themselves, having Him present to 
them, as a new agent and higher first term, would require the 
development of new consequences and incidents in the nature of 
wonders. Being a miracle Himself, it would be the greatest of 
all miracles if He did not work miracles. 

Let it be further noted, as a consideration important to the 
argument, that Christ is here on an errand high enough to 
justify His appearing, and also of a nature to exclude any sus- 
picion that He is going to overthrow the order of God's works. 
He declares that He has come out from God to be a restorer of 
sin, a regenerator of all things, a new moral creator of the 
world ; thus to do a work that is, at once, the hope of all order, 
and the greatest of all miracles. Were He simply juggling with 
our curiosity, in the performance of idle and useless wonders, 
doing it for money, or to show what is of no consequence ; as 
that He is a priest, or has the power of second sight, or that the 
sun shines, or that he is right in asserting some insignificant 
opinion, it is allowed that we should have no right to believe in 
Him. But he tells us, on the contrary, that He is come out 
from God, to set up the kingdom of God, and fulfil the highest 
ends of the divine goodness in the creation of the world itself; 
and the dignity of His work, certified by the dignity also of His 
character, sets all things in proportion, and commends Him to 
our confidence in all the wonders he performs. 

But our human supernatural action, it will be suggested, is 



AND OUGHT THEEEFORE TO WORK MIRACLES. 247 

through the body, while the raising of Lazarus dispenses with 
aJl natural media and instruments. And yet, as our body is a 
part of nature, it will be seen that we act upon the body as 
being itself nature, without media between it and our will, in 
the same manner. The relationship existing between different 
orders of being and nature, may also vary according to their 
degree. On this subject we know nothing. We cannot even 
say that, to such a being as Christ incarnate in it. the whole 
realm of physical existence was not present as a sensorium, 
quickened by His life. Mere ignorance is not competent here 
to hold an objection. If we cannot see how Christ could work 
His miracles, or send His will into things around him, there 'is 
nothing singular in the fact. There are many things that we 
cannot understand. 

Nor shall we apprehend in His miracles any disruption of law ; 
for we shall see that He is executing that true system, above 
nature and more comprehensive, which is itself the basis of all 
stability, and contains the real import of all things. Dwelling 
from eternity in this higher system Himself, and having it 
centred in His person, wheeling and subordinating thus all 
physical instruments, as doubtless He may, to serve those better 
ends in which all order lies, it will not be in us, when He comes 
forth from the Father, on the Father's errand, to forbid that He 
shall work in the prerogatives of the Father. Visibly not one 
of us, but a visitant who has come out from a realm of spiritual 
majesty, back of the sensuous orb on which our moth-eyes dwell 
as in congenial dimness and obscurity of light, what shall we 
think when we see diseases fly before Him, and blindness letting 
fall the scales of obscured vision, and death retreating from its 
prey, but that the seeming disruption of our retributive state 
under sin, is made to let in mercy and order from above. For, 
if man has buried himself in sense, and married all sense to sin, 
which sin is itself the soul of all disorder, can it be to us a fright- 
ful thing that He lays His hand upon the perverted causalities, 
and says, " Thou art made whole ? " If the bad empire, the 
bitter unnature, of our sin, is somewhere touched by His heal- 
ing power, must we apprehend some fatal shock of disorder ? 
If, by His miraculous force, some crevice is made in the senses 
to let in the light of heaven's peace and order, must we tremble 
lest the scientific laws are shaken, and the scientific causes* 
violated ? Better is it to say — " This beginning of miracles did 



248 NO OTHER ACCOUNT OF 

Jesus make in Galilee, and manifested forth his glory, and we 
believe in him." Glory breaks in through His incarnate person, 
to chase away the darkness. In Him peace and order descend 
to rebuild the realm below they have maintained above. Sin, 
the damned miracle and misery of the groaning creation, yields 
to the stronger miracle of Jesus and His works, and the great 
good minds of this and the upper worlds behold integrity and 
rest returning, and the peace of universal empire secure. Out 
of the disorder that was, rises order ; out of chaos, beauty. 
Amen ! Alleluia ! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth ! 

Once more, it is a powerful evidence for the historic verity of 
the Christian miracles, that their deniers can make no account 
of them, as reported in the Christian narratives, which is 
rational or even credible. Dr Strauss maintains that they are 
myths or legendary tales, that grew up out of the story-telling 
and marvelling habit of the disciples of Christ, within the first 
thirty years after their Master's death, at which time many of 
the eye-witnesses of the miracles were still living. That such a 
conversion of history into fable should have taken place in the 
traditions of a much longer period of time, is not impossible. 
But he is compelled to shorten his time in this manner, as it 
would seem, because there is no allusion made in the Gospels to 
the fall of Jerusalem as an accomplished fact. For, had they 
been written after the overthrow by Titus, it is inconceivable 
that his name should not have been mentioned in those chapters 
of the Gospels that foretell the overthrow, and also that the 
shocking scenes of the siege should not have been even too 
distinctly described. On the supposition, too, that the first age 
of discipleship was fertile enough in the mythical tendency to 
have generated so many miraculous stories within the short 
period of thirty years, this grand catastrophe of the nation must 
have been set off with a profuse garnish of fictions, and Christ 
Himself, coming in the clouds of heaven to be the avenger of 
the Cross, must have had such prominence in the transaction as 
to quite leave the Roman commander in the shade. Hence the 
necessity that so short a time should be fixed. And thus we 
are required to believe that all these myths were developed and 
recorded in the lifetime of the eye-witnesses of Christ's ministry, 
and some of them recorded by eye-witnesses themselves. The 
faith of miracles, we think, would be somewhat easier than this. 
And still the difficulty is further increased by the fact that the 



THE MIRACLES IS TENABLE. 249 

Epistles, the genuineness of which is indisputable, present 
exactly the same Christ, and refer to the same miracles, in a 
manner clear of all pretence of myth or extravagance. 

But the mythologic hypothesis of this critic breaks down more 
fatally, if possible, in the necessary implication, that four 
common men are able to preserve such a character as that of 
Christ, while loading down the history thus with so many 
mythical wonders that are the garb of their very grotesque and 
childish credulity. By what accident, we are compelled to ask, 
was an age of myths and fables able to develope and set forth 
the only conception of a perfect character ever known in our 
world ? Were these four mythologic dreamers, believing their 
own dreams and all others beside, the men to produce the per- 
fect character of Jesus, and a system of teachings that transcend 
all other teachings ever given to the race ? If there be a 
greater miracle or a tax on human credulity more severe, we 
know not where it is. Nothing is so difficult, all human litera- 
ture testifies, as to draw a character, and keep it in its living 
proportions. How much more to draw a perfect character, 
and not discolour it fatally by marks from the imperfection of 
the biographer. How is it, then, that four humble men, in an 
age of marvels and Rabbinical exaggerations, have done it — 
done what none, not even the wisest and greatest of mankind, 
have ever been able to do ? 

So far even Mr Parker concedes the right of my argument. 
" Measure," he says, " the religious doctrine of Jesus by that 
of the time and place He lived in, or that of any time and any 
place. Yes, by the doctrine of eternal truth. Consider what 
a work His words and deeds have wrought in the world. Re- 
member that the greatest minds have seen no farther, and 
added nothing to the doctrine of religion; that the richest 
hearts have felt no deeper, and added nothing to the sentiment 
of religion ; have set no loftier aim, no truer method than His, 
of perfect love to God and man. Measure Him by the shadow 
He has cast into the world — no, by the light He has shed 
upon it. Shall we be told such a man never lived — the whole 
story is a lie ? Suppose that Plato and Newton never lived. 
But who did their wonders, and thought their thought? It 
takes a Newton to forge a Newton. What man could have 
fabricated a Jesus ? None but a Jesus." 1 

1 Life of Jesus, p. 363, 



250 OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

Exactly so. And yet, in the middle of the very paragraph 
from which these words are gleaned, Mr Parker says, " We can 
learn few facts about Jesus ; " also, that in certain things— to 
wit, His miracles, we suppose — " Hercules was His equal, and 
Vishnu His superior." Few facts about Jesus ! all the miracles 
recited of Him as destitute of credibility as the stories of Her- 
cules and Vishnu ! And yet these evangelists, retailing so many 
absurd fictions and so much childish gossip, have been able to 
give us a doctrine upon which the world has never advanced, a 
character so deep that the richest hearts have felt nothing 
deeper, and added nothing to the sentiment of it. They have 
done, that is, the difficult thing, and broken down under the 
easy ! preserved, in the life and discourses of Jesus, what 
exceeds all human philosophy, all mortal beauty, and yet have 
not been able to recite the simplest facts ! Is it so that any 
intelligent critic will reason ? Suppose, if it please, that they 
are not infallible in their narrative, for we have not proved 
them to be. Still, as we would trust a carrier who has brought 
us a case of the rarest diamonds, set in the frailest and most 
delicate tissues, proving at once his capacity and his honest 
fidelity to his trust, so much more will we trust these simple 
men who have given us the perfect life of Jesus, discoloured 
by no stain from their own fond prejudices and weaker in- 
firmities. Nor, if this carrier may have once stumbled at our 
door, when bringing us some bundle of meaner consequence, do 
we set him down, after bringing us the casket safely, as one 
who is unreliable in these common errands. No more can we 
set down our evangelists, as unreliable in matters of fact, after 
they have brought us the glorious, self- evidencing character of 
Jesus, even though, to suppose the worst, they should be 
suspected, once or twice, of mistake in the external facts of His 
ministry. But there are objections to be considered. 

First objection. That if the miracles of Christ are to be 
believed, why not those also of Hercules and Vishnu, and the 
ecclesiastical miracles of the Papal Church ? Undoubtedly they 
must be, if they are wrought by such a character as Jesus, 
engaged in such a work. But it is rather too much to insist 
that, because we take good money, we ought therefore in con- 
sistency to take counterfeit money. If it be said that the 
Popish miracles are as well attested as those of Jesus, we have 
made nothing at all, let it be observed, of the mere testimony 



OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 251 

of witnesses. We have proved the witnesses hy that which 
stands in glorious self-evidence before us, and not the miracles 
by the mere testimony of the witnesses. "We will believe the 
miracles also of Hercules, when Hercules is seen, by the holy 
beauty of his perfect character, to have certainly come out from 
God. So, too, we might well enough agree to believe the 
miracles of the apocryphal gospels, that, for example, of the 
Infancy of Jesus, could the writer only manage to give us the 
character of that infancy, without reducing it to a disgusting 
picture of pettishness and passion. Until then we must dis- 
cover, in what is called his gospel, how certain it is that the 
pen which gives us only myths and marvels, for the facts of a 
perfect history, will give us, for a perfect character, what is 
wilder still and more absurd. 

Second objection. That, according to our definition, there 
may be false miracles. That is certainly the doctrine of Scrip- 
ture. Neither is there anything essentially incredible in it. 
They are wrought, of course, by no concurrence of divine power, 
but only by such power as belongs to the grade of the spirit 
by whom they are wrought — by "him whose coming is with 
signs and lying wonders," " by the spirits of devils, working 
miracles." According to our definition, any invisible spirit, 
who can do what is superhuman, can do a miracle. That there 
are invisible spirits, we have no doubt, and what kind of access 
they may have to nature, in what manner qualified or restrained, 
we do not know. But it will never be difficult to distinguish 
their prodigies and freaks of mischief from any divine operation. 
Their character will be evident in their works, and no one that 
loves the divine truth will ever be taken by their impostures. 
We express no opinion of the utterances and other demonstra- 
tions which many are accepting in our times, as the effusions of 
spirits — they are beyond our range of acquaintance. We say 
that if these things are really done or communicated by spirits, 
then they are miracles, bad miracles, of course ; and thus we 
have it established as a curious phenomenon, that the men who 
are boasting their rejection of all divine miracles, are themselves 
deepest in the faith of those which are wrought by demons. 
Nor is it impossible that God has suffered this late irruption of 
lying spirits, to be at once the punishment and the rectification 
of that shallow unbelief which distinguishes our age — thus to 
shame the absurd folly of what is here called science, and bring 



252 OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

us back to a true faith in the spiritual realities and powers of a 
supernatural kingdom. 

Third objection. That if miracles are credible in any parti- 
cular time or age, that, for example, of the New Testament, they 
must be now and always credible. To this we answer that they 
are now and always credible. But it does not follow that they 
are now and always a fact. That must depend upon historic 
evidence. The Scriptures nowhere teach, what is often as- 
sumed, the final discontinuance of miracles, and it is much to 
be regretted that such an assumption is so commonly made ; for 
when it is taken for an authorized doctrine, that God will no 
more allow any real miracle to be wrought since the apostolic 
times, it renders even the New Testament miracles just so much 
more difficult to be believed. There is no certain proof that 
miracles have been wrought in every age of the Christian 
Church. There is certainly a supernatural and divine causality 
streaming into the lives and blending with the faith of all good 
men, and there is no reason to doubt that it may sometimes 
issue in premonitions, results of guidance and healing, endow- 
ments of force, answers to prayer that closely approach, in many 
cases, if they do not exactly meet, our definition of miracles. 

We answer again, that if miracles have been discontinued, 
even for a thousand years, they may yet be revived in such 
varieties of form, as a different age may require. They will be 
revived without fail, whenever the ancient reason may return, 
or any new contingency may occur demanding their instru- 
mentality. 

And yet, again, we answer that there may have been good 
and sufficient reasons why the more palpable miracles of the 
apostolic age could not be continued, or must needs be inter- 
spaced by agencies of a more silent character. It may have 
been that they would by and by corrupt the impressions and 
ideas even of religion, setting men to look after signs and pro- 
digies with their eyes, inducing a contempt of everything else, 
and so, instead of attesting God to men, making them unspiritual 
and even incapable of faith. Traces of this mischief begin to 
appear even in the times of the apostles themselves. There- 
fore, when the fire is kindled, the smoke, it may be, ceases ; or 
rather it becomes transparent, so that we do not so readily see 
it, though it is there. Christianity, it is very obvious, inaugu- 
rates the faith of a supernatural agency in the world. It is 



OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 253 

either supernatural or it is a nullity. Hence, to inaugurate such 
a faith, it must needs make its entry into the world, through 
the fact of a divine incarnation and other miracles. In these 
we have the pole of thought, opposite to nature, set before us in 
distinct exhibition. And then the problem is, having the two 
poles of nature and the supernatural presented, that we be 
trained to apprehend them conjunctively, or as working together 
in silent terms of order. For, if the miracles continue in their 
palpable and staring forms of wonder, and take their footing as 
a permanent institution, they will breed a sensuous, desultory 
state of mind, opposite to all sobriety, and all genuine intelli- 
gence. The invalid will now pray to be healed by pure miracle, 
and will never learn or be taught how to pray, in a manner that 
contemplates a unifying of the supernatural force with nature 
and the system of natural causes. At a certain point the 
miracles were needed as the polar signs of a new force, but, for 
the reasons suggested, it appears to be necessary, also, that 
they should not be continuous ; otherwise the supernatural will 
never be thought into any terms of order, as a force conjoined 
with nature in our common experience, but will only instigate a 
wild, eccentric temper, closely akin to unreason and to all practi- 
cal delusion. And yet there may be times, even to the end of 
the world, when some outburst of the miraculous force of God 
will be needed to break up a lethargy of unbelief and sensuous 
dulness, equally unreasoning and desultory. 

Fourth objection. That whatever may be true of miracles 
in other respects, they are only demonstrations of force ; there- 
fore, having in themselves no moral quality, there is no rational 
or valuable, or even proper place for them in a gospel, con- 
sidered as a new-creating grace for the world. To this we 
answer that it is a thing of no secondary importance for a 
sinner, down under sin, and held fast in its bitter terms of 
bondage, to see that God has entered into his case with a force 
that is adequate. These mighty works of Jesus, which have 
been done and duly certified, are fit expressions to us of the 
fact that He can do for us all that we want. Doubtless it is 
a great and difficult thing to regenerate a fallen nature ; no 
person, really awake to his miserable and dreadful bondage, 
ever thought otherwise. But He that touched the blind eyes 
and commanded the leprosy away, He that trod the sea, and 
raised the dead, and burst the bars of death Himself, can tame 



254 CHRIST THE TRUE EVIDENCE. 

the passions, sweeten the bitter affections, regenerate the inbred 
diseases, and roll back all the storms of the mind. Assured in 
this manner by His miracles, they become arguments of trust, a 
storehouse of powerful images, that invigorate courage and 
stimulate hope. Broken as we are by our sorrow, cast down 
as we are by our guiltiness, ashamed, and weak, and ready to 
despair, we can yet venture a hope that our great soul-miracle 
may be done ; that if we can but touch the hem of Christ's 
garment, a virtue will go out of Him to heal us. In all dark 
days and darker struggles of the mind, in all outward disasters, 
and amid all storms upon the sea of life, we can yet descry Him 
treading the billows and hear Him saying, "It is I, be not 
afraid." And lest we should believe the miracles faintly, for 
there is a busy infidel lurking always in our hearts to cheat us 
of our faith when he cannot reason it away, the character of 
Jesus is ever shining with and through them, in clear self- 
evidence, leaving them never to stand as raw wonders only of 
might, but covering them with glory, as tokens of a heavenly 
love, and acts that only suit the proportions of His personal 
greatness and majesty. 

There are many in our day, as we know, who, without mak- 
ing any speculative point of the objection we are discussing, 
have so far yielded to the current misbelief as to profess, with 
a certain air of self- compliment, that they are quite content to 
accept the spirit of Jesus ; and let the miracles go for what 
they are worth. Little figure will they make as Christians in 
that kind of gospel. They will not, in fact, receive the spirit 
of Jesus ; for that unabridged is itself the Grand Miracle of 
Christianity, about which all the others play as scintillations 
only of the central fire. Still less will they believe that Jesus 
can do anything in them which their sin requires. They will 
only compliment His beauty, imitate or ape His ways in a feeble 
lifting of themselves, but that He can roll back the currents of 
nature, loosened by the disorders of sin, and raise them to a 
new birth in holiness, they will not believe. No such watery 
gospel of imitation, separated from grace, will have any living 
power in their life, or set them in any bond of unity with God. 
Nothing but to say — " Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of 
God by miracles and signs which God did by him" — can draw 
the soul to faith and open it to the power of a supernatural 
and new- creative mercy. 






IN HIM WE REST. 25c 

We come back then, in closing, to the grand first principle 
of evidence, and there we rest. The character and doctrine ol 
Jesus are the sun that holds all the minor orbs of revelation to 
their places, and pours a sovereign self- evidencing light into all 
religious knowledge. We have been debating much, and rang- 
ing over a wide field, in chase of the many phantoms of doubt 
and false argument, still we have not far to go for light, ii 
only we could cease debating and sit down to see. It is no 
ingenious fetches of argument that we want ; no external testi- 
mony, gathered here and there from the records of past ages, 
sufiices to end our doubts ; but it is the new sense opened in 
us by Jesus Himself — a sense deeper than words and more im- 
mediate than inference — of the miraculous grandeur of His life ; 
a glorious agreement felt between His works and His person, 
such that His miracles themselves are proved to us in our feel- 
ing, believed in by that inward testimony. On this inward testi- 
mony we are willing to stake everything, even the life that now 
is, and that which is to come. If the miracles, if revelation 
itself, cannot stand upon the superhuman character of Jesus, 
then let it fall. If that character does not contain all truth and 
centralize all truth in itself, then let there be no truth. If there 
is anything worthy of belief not found in this, we may well con- 
sent to live and die without it. Before this sovereign light, 
streaming out from God, the deep questions, and dark surmises, 
and doubts unresolved, which make a night so gloomy and terribte 
about us, hurry away to their native abyss. God, who com- 
manded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in ow 
hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
the face of Jesus Christ. This it is that has conquered the 
assaults of doubt and false learning in all past ages, and will in 
all ages to come. No argument against the sun will drive it 
from the sky. No mole-eyed scepticism, dazzled by its bright- 
ness, can turn away the shining it refuses to look upon. And 
they who long after God, will be ever turning their eyes thither- 
ward, and either with reason or without reason, or, if need b^ 
against manifold impediments of reason, will see and believa 



25G WATER-MARKS IN THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

WATER-MARKS IN THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 

There is no kind of evidence that is so convincing, 02 is re- 
ceived with so great satisfaction, as that which, after long and 
doubtful search, is suddenly discovered to have all the whiJe 
been on hand, incorporated, though unobserved, in the very sub- 
ject-matter of inquiry. Thus, for example, a suit upon a note 
at hand had long been pending in one of the courts of our com- 
monwealth, payment of which was resisted on the ground that 
it was and must be a forgery, no such note having ever been 
given. But the difficulty was in the trial to make out any con- 
clusive evidence of what the . defending party knew to be the 
truth. His counsel was, in fact, despairing utterly of success ; 
but it happened that, just as he was about closing his plea, hav- 
ing the note in his hand, and bringing it up, in the motion of 
his hand, so that the light struck through, his eye caught the 
glimpse of a mark in the paper. He stopped, held it up deli- 
berately to the light, and behold the name, in water-mark, 
of a company that had begun the manufacture of paper after 
the date of the instrument ! Here was evidence, without going 
far to seek it — evidence enough to turn the plaintiff forthwith 
into a felon, and consign him, as it did, to a felon's punish- 
ment. 

Just so there is, we now propose to show, a certain divine 
water-mark in the Christian doctrine, which, whether we see it 
or not, is there waiting at all times to be seen, and to give to 
all who will look for it indubitable proof of its supernatural and 
divine origin. 

And, first of all, we select for an example or principal in- 
stance, the grand comprehensive distinction of the Christian 



A DISTINCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 25/ 

system, viz., the assumption it everywhere makes of a neces- 
sarily twofold economy in the training of souls. This assump- 
tion or assumed necessity appears and reappears on almost every 
page of the New Testament. The two economies are " two 
covenants;" two ministrations — a "ministration of condemna- 
tion," and a " ministration of righteousness ;" " law and 
grace ;" " bondage and liberty ;" " the letter that killeth, 
and the spirit that giveth life ;" "the law that makes nothing 
perfect;" and " charity which is the bond of perfectness." 

We have spoken already * of this twofold process in the 
training of a soul, and shown the privative condition it is 
necessarily in till it has passed through the first stage or 
economy, and come forth in the second. Our object here, in 
recurring to the subject, is different, viz., to show the remark- 
able advantage Christianity or the Christian gospel has in the 
positive and deliberate recognition of a truth so plainly funda- 
mental, and one that, as soon as it is definitely stated, inevit- 
ably verifies itself and becomes an immovable conviction in 
every thoughtful mind. Christianity is just here quite alone ; 
alone, that is, in the deepest and most radical of all conceptions 
that pertain to the discipline of virtue ; alone, that is, in per- 
ceiving beforehand the necessary duality of the process, and 
conforming itself deliberately to what is required, in the pre- 
paration of a grand dual economy. In this fact all the human 
philosophers are left behind. For, while the Christian Scrip- 
tures are so forward, and full, and explicit in asserting the two 
testaments, and displaying their relative use and power, throw- 
ing themselves out boldly on their doctrine, in the noble confi- 
dence of truth, the philosophers do not appear as yet even to 
have had their attention attracted to the question. Such of 
them as were educated under Christianity, appear to have re- 
garded its manifold representations of letter and spirit, law and 
grace, a ministration of condemnation and a ministration of 
righteousness, as the unmeaning jingle or pious cant only of 
revelation, entitled in that view, to no philosophic respect. 
Indeed, it is not a little remarkable that some of the heathen 
philosophers appear to have approached the Christian doctrine 
more closely than they. 

Our Christian philosophers, so called — Christian, not because 
they teach anything that deserves the name, but because they 

1 Chapter iv. p. 76. 



?58 THE DUAL ECONOMY OF VIRTUE 

are born in Christian countries — commonly begin with man as 
being simply a conscious intelligence, conceiving him to be in 
his proper normal state, and to have, in that view, certain sus- 
ceptibilities to virtue ; a conscience, a free will, a power of doing 
good and receiving injury. Then, ignoring as a fact of no con- 
sequence the abnormal and diseased state of sin, they go on to 
build up their schemes of ethical practice, showing what the 
foundations of virtue may be, and upon those foundations erect- 
ing their codes of observance. But as they never allow them- 
selves to look on the fact of depravity, and the consequent state 
of psychological disorder, so they never trouble themselves about 
any such superlative notions of virtuous living, as respect the 
perfection and final beatitude of the soul. Their concern is 
simply to determine the authority of what is called virtue, and 
show the matters of good behaviour that are binding on men, 
in the relations of domestic, social, and public life. They in- 
culcate nothing but legalities. It is virtue enough to do the 
right things, no matter whether they are done grudgingly and 
by hard constraint, or willingly, cheerfully, and gladly, as the 
spontaneous tribute of a full and ready heart ; no matter, in- 
deed, whether it be only the doing of some right things such as 
concern human society, leaving out the duties owed to God, or 
whether it include all duty and so the possibility of a principle ! 
Meagre, sad-looking impostures, these ethical schemes, that bear 
the name of philosophy ! 

But the heathen philosophers, as we have already intimated, 
often do better. It is not any part of philosophy with them to 
steer wide of the truths of Christianity, and ignore all the 
great questions of revealed religion. Their ignorance of Chris- 
tianity delivers them of any such feeble and absurd jealousy. 
Accordingly they go directly into the great and solemn problems 
of human existence with a free mind and a universal aim. 
They take up the question of evil ; they recognize in the fullest 
manner, as we have shown already, the depravity of human 
nature, and the state of general distemper produced by sin ; 
they recognize also the sense of bondage encountered by every 
soul in its endeavours to resume self-government and re-establish 
the harmony of virtue. They go farther, they conceive a new 
and higher state of possible assimilation to God, or the gods, 
which they celebrate as the liberty of virtue. Thus Plato shows 
that " the more conformed the soul is to the Divine Will, so 



A DISTINCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 259 

much the more perfect and free it is." 1 Even Aristotle recog- 
nizes the necessity of freedom in virtuous exercises, as being the 
only sufficient ground of stability in them, " because blessed 
souls live and dwell always in such exercises without tedious- 
ness or staleness of mind." 2 Epictetus, in like manner, shows 
that " submitting the mind to the mind that governs all things, 
as good citizens to the law, is perfect liberty." 3 And Seneca 
coincides with all such testimonies, in the declaration " that it 
is a great and free mind that has given itself up to God." It 
could also be shown, by abundant citations, that they even dis- 
allowed the name of virtue to any merely legal or constrained 
practice. Having advanced so far in the right direction, we 
almost look to see them taking up the impression of some ne- 
cessary twofold process in the grand economy of virtue. But 
they are in a limitation. The assimilation to God, in which 
they rest their hope of liberty, or the complete state of virtue, 
is not prepared by a gospel and a new, supernatural, and 
redemptive movement, but only, as they conceive, by an appli- 
cation of their minds to God. " The philosopher," says Plato, 
" conversing with what is divine and excellent, becomes, as far 
as what is human may, divine and excellent." 4 Again, "Assimi- 
lation to God, in righteousness and holiness, is the result of 
wisdom or philosophy." 5 They had no conception, therefore, 
of two ministrations, and could not be expected, under a scheme 
of truth so deficient, to take up the yet deeper conception of 
a necessarily twofold process in the economy of virtue. As 
the Christian philosophers have never taken the hint of this 
antecedent necessity from the manifold declarations of the Scrip- 
ture, so these others have fallen short of it because they had 
nothing to yield them such a hint. 

And yet how easy it seems, having the hint of it once given, 
to verify this necessity ! Though no one of the philosophers 
was ever able to take up such a conception, it requires no phi- 
losopher, when it is once given, but only a thoughtful man, to 
perceive the certain truth of it. If (1.) there is to be a moral 
regimen set up in souls, it must begin with law, or imposed 
obligation ; no matter whether it be only pronounced in the 
conscience, or outwardly also in a revelation. Again, (2.) it is 
equally plain that mere law can bring nothing to perfection. 
The experiment of disobedience will be tried. The very motive 

1 Leg. L 2 Eth. 1. i. c. 10. s in Arrian, i. 2. 4 Eepub. 6 Theatet. 



260 THE DUAL ECONOMY OF VIRTUE 

it supplies to virtue, viz., retribution, makes the virtue weari- 
some, aud a burden certain to be cast off. It has no motivity 
that generates liberty; on the contrary, the motivity it has, 
appealing only to interest, detains from liberty. And yet, (3.) 
the law, it is equally manifest, will be a necessary condition or 
first stage in the process of holy training. It will impress 
the sense of law as a condition of wellbeing. It will also de- 
velope the knowledge of sin — what it is, and does, and deserves. 
And the bondage it creates, or which is created under it, the 
hopelessness, the death, will prepare the want of a deliverer. 
The regimen of abstract law, again, (4.) is, in this view, seen 
to be inherently faulty, even though the precept be perfect ; 
hence that nothing but a personal homage, or faith in a Divine 
person — whose character and life, embraced in love, suppose 
the embrace of all law — can finally bring in its principle, and 
establish it in the liberty of an eternal and celestial love. 

See, then, how distinctly all this and more is said in the 
Christian documents. Hold them up to the light, and let the 
Divine water-mark, or inwrought signature of God, appear ! 
Whence comes it that these Gospels and Epistles, clothed in no 
pomp of philosophy, and decked with no literary pretensions, so 
far transcend all the philosophy of all ages, opening up deeper 
truths regarding the great problem of human existence, than 
have anywhere else been discovered to the thought of man ? 
They tell us in the utmost simplicity of manner, and with no air 
of discovery, that God has two ministrations for us — letter and 
spirit, law and grace. As regards the first, they tell us that it 
is a fundamental and first fact in God's economy, no jot or tittle 
of which can ever fail — a perfect law, and so the basis or formal 
idea of all perfection. Yet, as an abstraction, commanded by 
authority, and enforced by power, it makes nothing perfect. It 
is only a schoolmaster that sets the training on foot, and brings 
it on a single stage. It is more unfortunate, however, than 
most schoolmasters, for the stage it prepares is one of loss and 
defeat, and not of gain — ordained to be unto life, it is found to 
be unto death. It is a ministration of condemnation. It is the 
letter that killeth. It entered that the offence might abound. 
Weak through the flesh, it accomplishes nothing but a state of 
bondage, and the loosing of retributive causes that set the whole 
creation groaning and travailing in pain together. And all this, 
we perceive, was understood as well at the beginning as after- 



A DISTINCTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 261 

ward. For, if there had been a law given that could have given 
life, then, verily, righteousness should have been by the law. 
But that was inherently impossible, and the impossibility is re- 
cognized from the first. The legal state was instituted, not as 
a finality, but as a first stage in the process of training; to 
develope the sense of guilt and spiritual want, to beget a know- 
ledge of sin, its exceeding sinfulness, and the insupportable 
bondage it creates. And then appears, in the person of the in- 
carnate Redeemer, a new and higher ministration, designed from 
the foundation of the world to complement, or even in supersed- 
ing to establish the other. Now He hath obtained a more excel- 
lent ministry, by how much also He is the mediator of a better 
covenant, which was established upon better promises. For, if 
that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have 
been sought for the second.- Now, it is no more a question of 
works ; there never could have been a rational expectation of 
human perfection on that basis ; but it is a question of simple 
faith. The righteousness of God without, or apart from the law, 
is now manifested, even the righteousness of God which is by 
faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe. 
What we call our virtue now is no more a will-work, or a some- 
thing done according to law, but it is a continuous and living 
ingeneration of God, who has thus become a divine impulse or 
quickening in us, and so the life of our life. Therefore now wg 
are free. Embracing the person of Christ, and yielding the 
homage of our hearts to Him, we do, in fact, resume the law, 
in our deliverance from its bondage. We keep His command- 
ments because we adhere to His person, and we enter thus into 
a liberty that fulfils all law, the liberty of love. There is there- 
fore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. 
For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us 
free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not 
do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own 
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in 
the flesh, that the righteousness of the law [i.e., of the precept] 
might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after 
the Spirit. The bondage now is gone. The stage of liberty is 
come. This is the Spirit that giveth life. This is the minis- 
tration of righteousness. And if the ministration of condemna- 
tion be glorious, much more doth the ministration of righteous- 
ness exceed in glory. 



262 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGION 

This exposition of the two ministrations we have given as 
nearly as possible in the language of Scripture. Not to be 
struck by the magnificence of the thought, would argue great 
dulness. All known speculations of philosophy regarding the 
moral economy of human life, sink into littleness and utter in- 
competency by the side of it. 

A very curious question, then, it is, whence came this doc- 
trine, and what should have set any writer, or any Christian 
school of writers, on the conception of it ? Why does it ap- 
pear in the Scriptures of the New Testament, and nowhere 
else ? It has, at first, a canting sound, it wears a strange, 
peculiar air, and comes to us in strange, half-mystic words — 
" letter " and " spirit," " law" and " grace," two " covenants," 
two "testaments," two "ministrations" — but it grows under 
inspection, fills itself out in the sublimity of its reasons, and 
finally stands confessed as the only adequate, the only true and 
real philosophy. It is no crude suggestion, or new thought 
half discovered. It is fully wrought out ; all the points are 
stated. Everything is set in complete working order ; yet with 
no parade of science or of definition, and, as it were, no consci- 
ousness of the transcendent superiority it reveals. "Whence, 
then, came it ? that is the question. And there is but one 
answer. We could sooner believe that Plato's dialogues were 
written by some wild herdsman of Scythia, than that this grand 
distinctive doctrine of the Scripture is of human invention. It 
bears the eternal water-mark of divinity, and that ends all 
inquiry. 

We pass on now to observe another most impressive distinc- 
tion of Christianity, in what may be called the grouping of its 
ideas ; and especially the fact that they group themselves in 
such beautiful order and harmony about the grand, supernatu- 
ral fact of the incarnation. That it is a fact supernatural in 
its form, will not be denied ; this indeed is one of the chief 
grounds of impeachment against the gospels. It will also be 
agreed, that if any such divine movement is really inaugurated 
in the world, there needs to be also a whole system of ideas 
and doctrines, springing forth and grouping themselves in 
order round it. Otherwise we have no sufficient instrumenta- 
tion, for our human use or handling of so great a fact, and our 
personal appropriation of it — no fit medium of thought re- 
specting it. 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 263 

Here then we discover, again, upon a large scale, the secret 
evidence of a higher presence in the gospel. To frame such a 
fitting of ideas and doctrines, by human invention, out of the 
materials of natural sagacity and reason, we may fairly say 
is impossible. There have been as many as nine avatars or 
incarnations, the Brahmins tell us, of their god Vishnu ; and 
multitudes of incarnations can be cited from the various pagan 
mythologies ; but when has there been developed, round the 
pretended supernatural fact, any scheme of ideas or truths, 
internally agreeing with it and having their roots of life in it ? 
It is a very easy thing, we may admit, to imagine a supernatural 
fact, an incarnation for example, but to fit it with a range of 
doctrines and holy ideas, such as will connect it with human 
experience and make it jfractical, is what no mortal wisdom was 
ever able to do. Thus, if there were given the fact of the 
incarnation of Jesus Christ, or His miraculous birth as the Son 
of Mary, there is no philosopher of mankind who could invent, 
around that central fact, a system of ideas and doctrines that 
would not, by their wild extravagance, and also by their mani- 
fest want of any vital agreement or coherence with it, turn it 
into mockery. Much less could he form a vehicle of dcctrine, 
that would make that central fact a power, in the practical life, 
and dovetail it into the experience of mankind. 

But all this we shall see accomplished, in the easiest and 
most natural manner possible in the Christian doctrine. And 
this is the line of our argument : that all the capital points or 
ideas of Christianity, frame into the supernatural, on one hand, 
in such beautiful order and facility, and without any strain of 
contrivance or logical adaptation ; and into human experience, 
on the other, in a way so consonant to the dignity of reason, 
and the wants and disabilities of sin, that the signature of God 
is plainly legible in the documents. The examples to be cited 
are numerous, and we set them forth under numerical nota- 
tions. 

1. The new religion, or that of the divine advent, is called a 
gospel. Why a gospel more than a wisdom, or philosophy, or 
doctrine ? These, and such like, are the names assumed by all 
the world's great teachers ; but it occurs to none of them to 
call their utterance, whatever it be, good news or a gospel. 
Whence the distinction ? It grows out of the simple fact that 
they offer a doctrine drawn out of premises in nature, and the 



264 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGION 

contents of natural reason, a doctrine which, being in those 
premises, is already given, and only waits to be deduced. 
Whereas, Christ comes into the world from without, and above 
it, and brings in with Him new premises, not here before. He is 
therefore proclaimed as news, good news — ''Behold, I bring you 
good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people." Christ 
also conceives Himself and His work in the same manner — 
" Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture." His apostles all follow testifying the fact, as new tid- 
ings — " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." 
If it should be said that the work of Christ is called a gospel 
by mere natural suggestion, because it is a real communication 
from another world to this, we care not to object, because the 
term is thus accounted for in a way that supposes the fact of a 
supernatural mission ; though, if the supposed mission were a 
fact given, it is doubtful whether any human skill, left to itself, 
would ever suit the fact with a name that so exactly corre- 
sponds with its peculiarity, as a fact appearing in the world, but 
not of it. It would be called by any other name, probably, as 
soon as by the name gospel, and if some name in great repute 
with men were at hand, such as would mark it with a special 
honour, probably sooner. But suppose there were no super- 
natural fact at all in the case, and that all we find of that 
character in the work were reducible to myth, or quite ex- 
plained away by a rationalistic interpretation. Whence, in that 
view, will the name gospel come ? If there is no supernatural 
fact at all, nor anything more than a pretence of it, who is going 
to handle even that fiction so nicely, as to fit it with the very 
peculiar name, gospel ? 

2. We have another of the radical notions of this gospel pre- 
sented in the word salvation. The work is called a salvation. 
The incarnate Word is named Jesus by anticipation ; because 
He will save the people from their sins. He declares finally, 
that He came to seek and to save ; and His work is published, 
after He is gone, as the grace of God that bringeth salvation. 
Meantime no human teacher has ever come to men with any- 
thing called by that name. The human teachers come with 
disquisitions, theories, philosophies, pedagogies, schemes of 
reformation, ideal republics, doctrines of association. But they, 
none of them speak of salvation. And that, for the simple 
reason, that they have not conceived the state of umiature under 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 265 

sin, as a really lost or undone state, requiring a supernatural 
and divine interposition to restore the ruin suffered. This is 
the point distinctly conceived by Christianity, and therefore it 
is called a salvation. Plato saw distinctly enough the depravity 
of human nature, and his doctrine of virtue, we have seen, was 
that it can be formed in the soul, only by a divine communica- 
tion. It is therefore only the more impressive, as a contrast, 
that, having these two elements of Christianity on hand, he no- 
where conceives the virtue wrought to be a salvation. After 
all, the state of sin is not to him a practically lost state, but 
the transition to virtue, slurred by indistinctness, is virtually 
regarded as a growth or advance on the footing of nature ; not 
a rescue from nature by a power above nature ; therefore, not 
a salvation. 

3. The doctrine of this salvation makes it a salvation by 
faith; in which we have another ruling idea of the scheme 
that coincides with its supernatural facts and character. Chris- 
tianity differs from all philosophies and ethical doctrines of 
men, in the fact that it rests all virtue in faith ; exactly as it 
should, if it be a grace imported into nature from without, an 
advent in the world of one who is from above. Such a salva- 
tion lies not within the premises of natural fact and reason ; it 
is not therefore a matter of science or of logical deduction. 
It makes its address, therefore, not to reason, but to faith. 
Reason may be allowed to have a tribunitial veto against it, 
provided the doctrine is certainly proved to be contrary to 
reason ; but it cannot be received by reason. It is only re- 
ceived, when faith comes, laden with sin and fettered by its 
iron bondage, to rest herself, in holy trust, on the transcendent 
fact of such an appearing, and to find by experiment that it is, 
in sacred reality and power, what it assumes to be. It finds 
the new premise true, proves it to be true, intuits it, in and by 
the immediate experience of the mind. The new salvation is 
by faith, because it is a supernatural salvation ; for whatever 
virtue the plan ministers must be in and by the receiver's faith, 
practically trusting soul and spirit to the fact of such a Saviour 
and salvation. 

There is much quarrelling with the New Testament on this 
ground. It becomes an offence because it requires faith. 
Where is the merit of mere believing, that it should be made 
the necessary condition of salvation ? In one view there is 



266 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGION" 

none, we answer, and it is not required because there is any, 
There is no merit in trusting a physician, but it may be a 
matter of some consequence that his medicines be taken ; as 
they will not be, without some kind of faith in him. So it is 
a matter of consequence that the Christian grace be accepted, as 
it certainly will not be, unless the soul is practically trusted to 
it and the giver. If there is to be a healing, a new ingenera- 
tion of life and holy virtue, it can never be, save by the efficacy 
of a supernatural remedy. Believing in that remedy is the 
same thing as coming into its power ; and, therefore, on this 
faith the gospel hangs salvation. It could not be otherwise. 
If Christianity, being supernatural, offered salvation on any 
other terms than faith, the otter would even be absurd, having 
no agreement with the grace offered. That it hangs salvation 
on this condition, indicates a thorough insight of its own nature, 
and the more ready the shallow wit of man is to find fault 
with such a condition, as humiliating or insulting to reason, 
the more evidently it is not from man, but from a superior and 
superhuman source. 

Regarding faith, in this manner, as having its value, not in 
its own merit, but in what it receives, we would not be under- 
stood to represent it as an optional matter, without any positive 
obligation. It is a duty binding on every moral being, to believe 
and practically receive everything that is true ; and this on the 
principle that mind, honestly used, will distinguish all important 
truth. Doubtless one may become so entangled by the ingenious 
sophistries of sin, or so darkened by its baleful shadow, that he 
cannot in a moment find, or finding, cannot embrace the truth. 
In such a case, the blame must rest upon his guilty past, and 
the mental distortion he has created, by his former abuse of 
truth, until such time as he can recover his sight. And this he 
may do rapidly, if only, trusting in God, he will take into prac- 
tice, for medicine, every single truth he is able to find. All his 
unbeliefs and misbeliefs will be certainly cleared in this manner. 
And therefore Christ requires it of him, that they shall be; 
throwing his salvation even upon his belief of the truth. 

4. Justification by faith is another distinctive point of the 
Christian gospel. And this includes two principal matters com- 
bined ; that the transgressor, believing, has a righteousness 
generated in him, which is not built up under the law, by his 
own practice ; and that something has been done to compensate 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 267 

the law, violated by his past offences, and save it in honour, 
when his sin is forgiven. 

As to the former, the righteousness ingenerated, the manner 
is sufficiently indicated, when it is called the righteousness that 
is of God by faith, unto and upon all them that believe. It is 
unto and upon such only as believe ; because, as we just now 
said, speaking of salvation, it is only by faith that the soul is so 
trusted to, and deposited in, the supernatural grace of God, as to 
be invested with His righteousness, or assimilated to it. Be- 
sides, it will be observed that this is called justification, partly 
because the natural laws of retributive justice, which are penally 
chastising the sinner, holding him fast in the meshes of inex- 
tricable disorder and woe, can be controverted, or turned aside, 
only by a power supernatural and divine. 

As to the latter point concerned, the implied compensation to 
law, in the supposed free justification, it is not that something 
is done to be a spectacle before unknown worlds, or something 
to square up a legal account of pains and penalties, according to 
some small scheme of book-keeping philosophy, but it is simply 
this : that, as there must be two stages of discipline to carry on 
the world — viz., letter and spirit, law and grace — the introduc- 
tion of pardon, or the universal and free remission of sins, must 
be so prepared, as not to do away with the law stage that is 
precedent, but must let them both exist together, to act concur- 
rently on the world. And this is done by the obedience of 
Christ, obedience unto death. Who can say or think that God 
yields up His law, in the forgiveness of sins, when the Word 
incarnate, having it on Him as a bond of love, the same that 
our human sin has broken, renders up His life to it, and bows 
to the awful passion of the cross, that He may fulfil its require- 
ments. Magnified and made honourable by such a contribution 
of respect, no free remission or removal of penalties running 
against us can be felt to shake its authority. 

It is hardly necessary to suggest the fact, that Christianity is 
radically distinguished, in this matter of justification, from the 
philosophies and the known religions. They see nothing in sin 
or its penal disorders that requires a distinctly supernatural 
remedy ; or, when they are removed, any apparent infringement 
of law and justice. They only think to make men better by 
something done upon the natural footing ; which, if they can do, 
they have no farther concern. They have no such conception 



268 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGION 

of a twofold economy of God as makes it a matter of consequence 
to see that, when He forgives, the law is saved to the world and 
kept on foot, as an element of training and discipline. If they 
speak of pardon, it is no such pardon as partakes a judicial 
character. Or if they speak of expiation, offering up their 
children, it may be, to buy the release of their sin, it is the 
passions of their God they seek to arrest, and not His desecrated 
authority they will sanctify. They have no care for law, and no 
suspicion that their God has any. They have no conception of 
any such solemn relations between their sin and the eternal 
government of the world, as creates a difficulty in the way of 
releasing their punishment. No difficulty is apprehended, save 
in the ill-nature of their God ; and they expect to appease Him 
by giving Him pains enough, and gory bodies enough of the 
innocent, to satisfy Him. But the Christian truth is deeper in its 
reasons, and has a more benign character. It comes into the world 
as a divine advent, to fulfil a second stage in the moral eco- 
nomy of holiness. As the law begins with nature, so this finishes 
with supernatural grace. As one binds, the other liberates ; as 
one kills, the other makes alive ; and yet so tempered are they 
both, that they are kept in perpetual action together. Let the 
philosophers and human teachers show us that they have some 
comprehension of the great problem of life, and of God's relation 
to it, equally comprehensive in its breadth, and deep in its reasons. 
5. It is another of the grand distinctions of Christianity that 
it sets up a kingdom of God on earth. It is called " the king- 
dom of God" or " of heaven," because the organic force by 
which so many wills and finally all mankind are to be gathered 
into unity, is not in nature, but comes down out of heaven, in 
the person of Christ the king. It is very natural that the 
different political organizations of the world should be em- 
ployed figuratively, as terms of representation, in matters not 
political. Thus we have theoretic commonwealths and ideal 
republics. Truth is conceived as an empire. In the natural 
sciences we have what are called three kingdoms, the animal, 
and vegetable, and mineral. But here we have, what is not 
elsewhere conceived, a supernatural kingdom in souls, the king- 
dom of God ; a real, living polity, organized by a real king, and- 
swayed and propagated by the powers of truth and love, centred 
in His divine person. Jesus coming into the world, as tne 
incarnate Word of God, brings a new force with Him, entering 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 269 

into souls as the advent of a new divine power. In Him 
therefore begins, of course, a new organization, the kingdom of 
God in souls — righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. This accordingly is the great thought of Christianity — 
the kingdom of God ; the implanting of a divine rule in lost men, 
and the gathering in, at last, of all people and kindreds of the 
earth, into a vast, universal order of peace and truth under 
Christ the anointed king. 

The fact grows out of the incarnation, so that when Jesus is 
about to appear, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. No other 
religion, no priest or seer, no avatar of deity, has ever raised 
such a conception. It is the peculiar thought or fact of Chris- 
tianity. And yet, daring as the proposition is, so extravagant 
that no mere man could make it without a charge of lunacy, 
Christ undertakes it — Christ, the Nazarene carpenter — and what 
is more, assumes the dominion and makes His kingdom good. 
And yet, if He could not make it good, His incarnation could 
not stand as an accepted fact. So closely interwoven are these 
two, the incarnate appearing, and the kingdom of God. 

6. The Holy Spirit also is a Christian conception, standing 
in profound agreement with the supernatural fact of the gospel. 
As Christ, incarnate, is a supernatural embodiment, or manifes- 
tation localized in space, so the Holy Spirit is a supernatural 
indwelling force, by which Christ is perpetuated in the world, 
universalized in all localities, and brought nigh to every being, 
in every place. And that there may be no mistake regarding 
the supernatural character of His agency, He is represented as 
being inaugurated by external signs, and by gifts of utterance 
and healing, that transcend all human power. He is not to 
be confounded, in this respect, with conceptions often taken up 
by the Eastern sages and philosophers, that are analogous in 
form, but really suppose, in their minds, no agency of God, 
save that which is implied in His omnipresent dominion over 
nature. " God, they conceived, permeates or passes through 
all things;" 1 and they called Him in this view, "the divine 
spirit." 2 Thus Apuleius says, that " nothing is so excellent, 
or great in power, as to be content with its own nature alone, 
void of the divine aid or influence." Philoponus, with our 
very point of need in his eye, calls what should be the Spirit, 
simply a providence. " Though the soul be lapsed into a 

1 Cud. ii. 498. 2 Be Mundo, 68. 



270 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGION 

preternatural or unnatural state, still it is yet not neglected by 
Providence, but has a constant care taken of it, in order to its 
recovery." 1 Seneca distinctly conceives a divine spirit, active 
in us, and yet this spirit dwindles into a minister only of 
natural retribution. " The sacred spirit dwells in us, observer 
of our evil things, guardian of our good, and He treats us as 
we treat Him." 2 None of these conceptions really meet the 
case of a supernatural religion. This demands a Spirit engaged 
to deliver, and competent to deliver from the lapse of nature, 
by acting on the fallen subject, and separating him from the 
retributive action of natural causes ; dwelling in him thus, 
holding him up, guiding him on, extricating his liberty, and 
witnessing in him, as a divine revelation to his consciousness. 

There is also a profound necessity for the Holy Spirit, thus 
conceived, in the miraculous advent of Christ itself. Christ 
and the Spirit are complementary forces, and, both together, 
constitute a complete whole ; such a kind of whole as no man, 
or myth, or accident ever invented. There was an inherent 
necessity that whatever supernatural movement, for the regene- 
ration of man, might be undertaken, should include both a 
moral and an efficient agency ; one before the understanding, 
and the other back of it, in the secret springs of the disordered 
nature ; a divine object clothed in beauty, and love, and jus- 
tice, to be a mould into which the soul may be formed, the 
type of a divine life in which it may consentingly be 
crystallized ; an efficient grace, working within the soul, pre- 
paring it to will and to do, and rolling back the currents of 
retributive causes in it, opening it to the power of its glorious 
exemplar, and drawing it ever into that, and a life proceeding 
from it. Without the former before the mind, whatever is 
done within, by efficiency, would be only a work of repair, a 
something executed, of whose way or method we should know 
as little as we do of health restored by hidden causes. The 
change would be merely physical, not any change of character 
at all, more than when the secretions of the body are changed. 
Without the latter — the efficient working — the model set 
before us in the divine beauty of Christ and His death, would 
find us dulled in understanding, blurred in perception, and 
held fast in the penal bondage of our sins ; approving the 
good before us only faintly, desiring it coldly, endeavouring 

1 Proem in Aristotle de Anima. 2 Ep. 41. 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 271 

after it if at all, impotently, even as a bird might try to rise 
whose wings are cat. 

Such is the profound agreement of Christ and the Holy 
Spirit. One is naught without the other. Given then the 
fact of the incarnation, and of Christ's human appearing, by 
whom was this remarkable counterpart or complement to His 
appearing invented ? Who, in other words, contrived the day 
of Pentecost? Was it a man? was it several men of only 
common faith ? or was it done by the loose gossip of a wonder- 
ing and credulous age ? The history says that Christ Himself 
gave the Spirit, by direct promise ; declaring that it was ex- 
pedient now for Him to retire from before the eyes, that the 
Spirit might come, and taking his exemplar into men's bosoms, 
in every place, all over the world, show it to them there. 
Who but Christ and He, the eternal Son of God, ever gene- 
rated this conception ? 

7. The doctrine of spiritual regeneration, propounded in the 
gospel, is another point where it meets at once our human state 
and the fact of a supernatural economy. This truth of regen- 
eration supposes a loss out of human nature, of the seed-principle 
of a good and holy life ; such that the subject has really no good 
in his character, and never can by himself generate, or set 
himself in, the principle of good. He can do many good things, 
such as men call good, according to the standard of ethics or of 
human custom (which is the world's law of virtue), and may fitly 
enough be praised for the comely parts that make up the figure 
of his life. But these comelinesses are a virtue of items, mere 
will-works that proceed from no seed-principle of good. Some- 
times even the worldly-minded teachers of Christianity take up 
with this kind of virtue, and form their estimates of character by 
inspecting the atoms collected in the life. Some things done, 
they say, are good, and some are bad — the good things ought to 
be increased, and the bad reduced. They see, of course, no 
radical defect back of the particulars noted, and therefore no 
need of a radical change in the life. It is the things done that 
make the character, and not the principle, or want of it, that 
gives character to the things. Their gospel is even more 
shallow than a pagan's philosophy. According to Seneca, who 
penetrates the real ground- work of human character — "All sins 
are in all men, but do not appear in each man. He that hath 
one sin hath all. We say that all men are intemperate, avari- 



272 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGION 

eious, luxurious, malign — not that these sins appear in all, but 
because they may be, yea, are, in all, though latent." * Nothing 
is more rational ; for, if nothing is done from any right principle, 
then nothing done is right, and there is no seed of right-doing in 
us. The doings may be kept up by our will, without any seed- 
principle, so attentively and punctiliously as even to become 
tastes ; but tastes are not inspirations, and the only true virtue 
of man is that which he does from God, in the inspiration of a 
divine liberty. Separated from God, he is a monster, and not a 
proper man, however plausible the show he makes. And this is 
the effect of sin. It alienates the subject from the life of God. 
Under sin, he is no more conscious of God, as in his normal 
state he was and must be. He is therefore uncentralized by it, 
dead at the core. The seed-principle of eternal life and beauty 
and order is gone. He centres in himself, gravitates downward 
into, collapses in, himself ; and he could as easily leap out of the 
malstrom, as set himself in the true liberty and seed-principle of 
holiness. 

It is therefore declared, as the necessary condition of our 
salvation, that we must be born again, born not of blood, nor 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And 
this great change is the beginning and spring of all true heavenly 
virtue, because it is the revelation of God in the soul. Now the 
soul is conscious of God again. Now it moves in the line of the 
divine movement, which is moving in the Spirit ; which, again, 
is the inspiration of liberty. All this, of course, not without 
consent in the subject, probably not without some deep and 
violent struggles on his part, to make way for the divine revela- 
tion. He must offer up himself to the divine will, and to all the 
approaches of the divine love ; and this includes much — a 
removal of all obstructions, a renunciation of self, a free commit- 
ment of all things to Christ, and a pliant, unequivocal, and 
humble faith in Him. But none of these are, by themselves, 
regeneration. That is of God, and is, in fact, the soul's assump- 
tion, or resumption, by God. To say that it is a change of the 
soul's love, is only another version of the same truth ; for the 
love is changed by the entering in of God and His love, info the 
soul's faith. For love is of God, and every one that loveth is 
born of God, and knoweth God. Old things are passed away, 
and all things are become new ; because God is revealed within, 

1 Ep. 50. 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 273 

changing, of course, the principle of all action, and the meaning 
of all experience. That this new revelation is supernatural, 
coinciding, in everything said of it, with the grand central 
fact of the incarnation, need not be shown. Enough that it is 
the initiation of a sinner and alien into the kingdom of God — 
Except a man be bom again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 

8. The Christian doctrine of Providence coincides, also, with 
the fact of a supernatural work in the redemption of mankind. 
It assumes, without misgiving, the bold conception of a super- 
natural Providence, under which the world itself is ruled in the 
interest of Christianity ; a conception that will be verified in 
the next or following chapter, and therefore need not be dis- 
cussed here. Nothing more is necessary to our present purpose, 
than just to call attention to the remarkable fact that this myth, 
this maiwel of superstition, this gossip of miracle, that we call 
Christianity, dares to claim the government of the world (as in 
real consistency it should) in its interest, and, what is more, 
history, as we shall see, audits the claim, and makes it good. 

9. We name, as another point of the Christian doctrine, 
strangely and surprisingly coincident with the supernatural idea 
of the plan, introduced by the incarnate appearing of Christ, 
the Trinity of God. I say, strangely and surprisingly coin- 
cident, because the last thing that would occur to any human 
being, in the exercise of his natural wisdom, would be the 
introduction of a new or modified conception of God, to accom- 
modate the new fact of a gospel. And yet, exactly this is 
what we discover in the matter of that gospel ; and, what is 
more, having the fact before us, we can easily enough distin- 
guish a practical reason for it, in the requisite instrumental 
use, or handling of that gospel ; or, what is no wise different, 
in the practical adjustment of our relations to God, under the 
twofold conditions of nature and grace, in which He is now set 
before us. 

We cannot here go into the learning of this great question. 
Suffice it to say, that the Old Testament Scriptures contain the 
rudiments of a trinity, and that the Platonic, Alexandrian, and 
Christian trinities are either suggested by, or developed from 
these rudiments. That the Old Testament Scriptures are prior 
in date, even by hundreds of years, to the writings of Plato, is 
not to be denied. The East was full of traditions from these 
Scriptures, and he himself, a traveller in those parts, professed 



274 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGIOxS 

that he derived many things from the traditions of the " Bar- 
barians." It cannot therefore be charged that the Christian 
trinity, as given by Christ, in the baptismal formula, was origin- 
ally a product of natural reason, and was transferred from Plato's 
theosophy. No trinity was ever suggested by mere thought, or 
generated by mere natural reason. Keason takes the road of 
unity, and the conception of a triad comes out, if at all, from the 
process of a supernatural revelation. Thus came the Christian 
trinity, as a fact historically developed ; first in the Almighty 
Creator and Father, the Jehovah-angel or Word of the Lord, 
and the Holy Spirit, of the Old Testament; then in the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, of the New. It is a conception gene- 
rated by supernatural transactions, and is needed to accommodate 
the uses of a supernatural salvation. 

Thus, if there were but one economy, or ministration of God, 
known to us, viz., that of nature, we should never need, and, in 
fact, should never have, any conception of the Divine Being, 
save that which is named by the terms God, the Almighty, the 
Creator, and others, conformed to the notion of the divine 
unity. But, having fallen into a state of retributive disorder, 
from which we can be delivered only by a supernatural salva- 
tion, we are obliged to adjust ourselves toward God as filling 
two economies, and that requires a new machinery of thought. 
If now we have only the single term God, we must speak of 
God as dealing with God, or of the grace-force of God, as 
delivering from the nature-force of God. If the work includes 
an incarnation, as we suppose it must, then it must be God 
sending God into the world ; and, if it includes a renovating, 
new-revealing agency within, then we can only go to God to 
give us God and ask of God to roll back the retributive causa- 
tions of God, that are fastening their penal bondage on us. 
All which, we may see, is a method too clumsy and confused to 
serve at all the practical uses of the salvation provided. There 
is, in short, no intellectual machinery, in a close theoretic mono- 
theism, for any such thing as a work of grace or supernatural 
redemption. In the Christian trinity, this want is supplied. 
First, we have the Father, setting God before us as the author 
and ground of all natural things and causes. Then we have the 
Son and the Spirit, which represent what God may do, acting 
on the lines of causes in nature ; one as coming into nature from 
without, to be incarnate in it, the other as working internally in 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 275 

the power of the Son, to dispense to the soul what He addressed 
outwardly to human thought, and configure the soul to Him, as 
an exemplar embraced by its faith. Then, putting our trust in 
the Son, as coming down from God, offering Himself before 
God, going up to Him, interceding before Him, reigning with 
Him, by Him accepted, honoured, glorified ; invoking also God 
and Christ to send down the Spirit, and let Him be the power of 
a new indwelling life, breathing health into our diseases, and 
rolling back the penal currents of justice to free us of our sin, 
we are able to act ourselves before the new salvation, so as to 
receive the full force of it. Having these instruments of thought 
and feeling and faith toward God, and suffering no foolish 
quibbles of speculative logic to plague us, asking never how 
many Gods there are ! nor how it is possible for one to send 
another, act before another, reconcile us to another ? but, 
assured that God is one eternally, however multiform our con- 
ceptions of His working, how lively and full and blessed is the 
converse we get, through these living personations, so pliant to 
our use as finite men, so gloriously accommodated to the two- 
fold economy of our salvation as sinners ! Is this now a con- 
ception gotten up by man, upon his natural level ? Is there 
any philosophic, theosophic, or mythologic mark upon it ? 

We have thus brought into review as many as nine of the 
principal facts and prominent articles of Christianity, and find 
them crystallizing into a perfectly harmonious and orderly 
system, round the one central fact of a supernatural religion, 
initiated in the incarnate appearing of Christ. His work is 
called a gospel on this account, precisely as it should be, and 
yet by no human suggestion would be. It is also called a sal- 
vation, differing from all theosophies and mythologies, in the 
fact that it is a supernatural restorative force, and, in that view, 
the only real salvation ever known. It brings the salvation also 
to faith and hangs it on faith, as by the conditions of the case 
it must, and as no other known scheme of virtue does. It jus- 
tifies also by faith, communicating, in this manner, the righteous- 
ness of God, and preparing acquittal in a way that keeps the 
law in full force, as the nature-side and necessary element of 
human training. A kingdom of God, or of heaven, is erected 
by it on earth ; in which we see, by the name itself, that the 
reigning force of the new kingdom is not of nature, but from 
without and above the world. The Holy Spirit is inaugurated 



276 NO OTHER SUPERNATURAL RELIGION 

as a conception of the divine working, different from that which 
is included in the laws of nature, and delivering from the re- 
tributive action of those laws. This deliverance, connected with 
a renovated principle of life in the soul, it calls regeneration, 
conceiving, in a way peculiar to itself, that without the change 
thus denominated, as a second birth, or newly regenerated life, 
there is and can be no seed-principle of heavenly virtue. Here 
too is proposed, for the first time in the world, a properly super- 
natural providence ; that is, a providence which governs the 
world, in the interest of salvation, or regenerated holiness. 
Accordantly also with such a conception of God, as presiding 
over a double administration of law and grace, nature and the 
supernatural, the divine unity is reproduced as trinity ; in which, 
whatever may be the thought of other trinities, Christianity 
holds, at least, the honourable distinction of being the only doc- 
trine that conceives a trinity, in and through, and practically 
operative with, a double economy of divine government. 

Is there not something remarkable in this general consent of 
the Christian names, facts, ideas, and doctrines ? and the more 
remarkable that it appears in matters where we should least 
look for it, if left to ourselves and the natural processes of our 
thoughts ? And still the list might be indefinitely extended. 
Thus preaching is to be the means of propagation for this 
gospel, and what but a supernatural gift to the world could 
ever be heralded or preached ? Prophesying in the Spirit is a 
supernatural utterance. The ministry are conceived to be set 
apart by the Holy Spirit, which is true of no other class of 
teachers, on the footing of reason or of natural science. Spiri- 
tual gifts belong to a plan transcending nature. The sacraments 
are consecrated vehicles of grace and power. Visions and re- 
velations are from above. The resurrection of the dead is not 
of nature. The history of the original propagation of Chris- 
tianity, taken as a whole, is, in fact, a miraculous process, and 
nothing less. In short, the whole fabric of the Christian insti- 
tution — thought, name, office, fact, and doctrine — centres, we 
discover, in the one grand idea of a supernatural movement on 
the world. There is nothing eccentric that will not fall into 
the general aim of the plan and chime with it ; no fantastic 
matter that is unreducible, as we should expect, if human wis- 
dom only had undertaken the devising and the adjustment of 
the parts. As Napoleon noticed, with an impression of 



INTELLECTUALLY COMPLETE. 277 

wonder, " One thing follows another like the ranks of a 
celestial army." He knew what an army was, and the order 
of a well-set discipline, but he finds a higher, even celestial 
order, which his phalanx is a thing too loose to represent, in 
the gloriously compacted truths of a heaven-born, supernatural 
faith. 

Even Mr Hennel admits a correspondent impression of the 
compact unity, and the admirable working order of the Christian 
plan ; admitting, strangely enough, that it excels all other fruits 
of human learning and philosophy in this respect, and yet con- 
ceiving that, with all its high pretensions of a supernatural 
origin, and the undeniably supernatural guise in which it stands, 
it is itself a strictly human product ! He says, " Christianity 
has presented to the world a system, of moral excellence. It 
has led forth the principles of humanity and benevolence from 
the recesses of the schools and groves, and compelled them to 
take an active part in the affairs of life. It has consolidated 
the moral and religious sentiments into a more definite, in- 
fluential form than had before existed, and thereby constituted 
an engine that has worked powerfully towards humanizing and 
civilizing the world." 1 Moral and religious sentiments! as if 
it were only a compact of these, and such like human qualities, 
when it is talking all the while of the incarnation, of faith, of 
justification, of the better covenant, of regeneration, of the re- 
surrection of the dead, and commanding its apostles to preach 
the trinity of God ! Are these staple matters of Christianity 
our " moral and religious sentiments ?" " Consolidated " also 
they are " into a more definite and influential form !" Is it in 
such lofty and transcendent spiritualities as these which are 
named, that our mere human notions are wont to get consoli- 
dated ? And why could not the philosophers, such men as 
Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca, consolidate such 
human notions as well, or to as good effect, as the rude fisher- 
man of Galilee ? And yet what is there of solidity, in giving 
to these mere natural things or sentiments, a form so fantastical 
and flighty, and calling them by names to which no human 
thought can reach ? Doubtless Christianity is " more influen- 
tial," but it is so, because it is so truly unsolid, so spiritual, 
and so visibly superior to the world, and to all those dull im- 
becilities sometimes called religious sentiments. God is in 

l Inquiry, p. 48. 



278 THIS COMPLETED SCHEME 

Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself — that is influential, 
that is power ! 

And now the question is — Whence comes this supernatural, 
world-transcending institute, erected among us, in so many 
tokens of a perfect intelligence? Whence this more than 
logical, this organic unity in things so remote, and to mere 
human thought undiseoverable ; for if it be possible that human 
thought should stumble on a fiction so magnificent, it certainly 
could not frame it into order, and offer it as a truth of salva- 
tion. 

In adjusting our answer to this question, it is important, 
first of all, to observe that the Christian truth has obviously 
nothing of the form of a scheme thought out by the natural 
understanding. It is not metaphysical or deductive. It pro- 
poses itself to faith, under laws of expression, and is plainly 
seen to be no product of mental analysis or constructive logic. 
It has the form not of something generated by, but of some- 
thing offered to, the world. It comes down into history, as 
it represents, from a point above history ; standing out in 
symbols of fact and expression, that are to report and verify 
themselves. It, is, in form, a something to be believed, not a 
something reasoned — incarnation, love, miracle, a calling of God 
after men, a communication of the divine nature. Admitting, 
as we safely enough may, for the present, that criticism dis- 
covers tokens of human activity and frailty in the record, still 
the operative system stands forth in its own simple confidence, 
in its own heavenly form, as a gospel to the world, and as such 
it reveals the solid unity, the glorious depths of harmony and 
self- understanding, we have discovered in its doctrine. It speaks 
as if it never had a thought of system, and yet reveals a reach 
of system wider than all human philosophy. 

But this will be denied, and still it will be maintained that 
this unconscious, inartificial fabric, is a work of art. That, if 
we know anything of what is in man, is impossible. If the 
scheme were down upon the footing of nature, as on the face it 
declares it is not, then it might not be difficult to admit that 
human skill, or even the silent process of human history, as in 
the case of the English common law, should shape it into a 
system of apparent order and scientific unity. But being a 
scheme supernatural, not even the first facts or premises were 
included in our knowledge, as derived from our natural expcri- 



CANNOT BE OF MAN. 279 

ence, and required therefore to be invented by us ; and to sup- 
pose that our human faculties, breaking over the confines in this 
manner of all knowledge, could there build up, in the cloud-land 
of unknown, merely imagined fact, a sober, thoroughly coherent 
scheme of truth and renovating life, adjusting the infinite to the 
finite, law to mercy, discord and death to liberty and salvation, 
and setting all its grand array of facts, names, doctrines, and 
powers, in a frame of solid and compact unity — such a supposi- 
tion is too extravagant to be rationally entertained. It is, sup- 
posing that we are able to build in the realm of fiction itself, 
a vaster and more solid economy of intellectual and practical 
truth, than has ever yet been built on the basis of experience. 

Three suppositions may be raised in regard to the matter in 
question ; viz., that the work is all of man ; that it is partly 
of man ; and that it is all of God. The first of these we have 
discussed already ; for, if such a work could not be invented, 
much less could it be accomplished by the haphazard process 
of myth and wild tradition. The second, which supposes some 
central point of a supernatural plan being given — the fact, for 
example, of the incarnation — that this fact was wrought up by 
the human understanding, through a course of active develop- 
ment, into the complete scheme and perfect unity we have 
described, need not be particularly discussed, because it allows 
the fact of a supernatural root and beginning, which is the 
principal matter in question. 

The third supposition is the only one that is rationally 
tenable ; viz., that this grand out-birth of a new divine economy, 
called the gospel, is, in fact, supernatural, and stands in the 
compact order of a complete intellectual unity, because it was 
given by a comprehending mind equal to the reach of the plan. 
Not that everything written, or advanced in the canonical books 
of the New Testament, is historic fact or infallible truth — our 
present supposition does not reach so far as that, but leaves a 
space to be filled up by other kinds of argument — it simply 
supposes that all such prominent ideas, tokens, facts, and 
doctrines as we have named — that is, everything which goes to 
shape the new economy, as being integral to it — is brought 
into knowledge and published to the world supernaturally. 
And the proof is that already given; viz., that the consent of 
so many parts and tokens in one central fact and design, can- 
not otherwise be accounted for, and is otherwise truly impos- 



280 THIS COMPLETED SCHEME 

sible. The human understanding may frame a theory out of 
data or phenomena supplied by experience ; it may scheme 
out a system or hypothesis, regarding matters known, that is 
coherent, and stands in the complete unity of reason ; but it is 
a very different thing to make up a supernatural kosmos of 
fact, doctrine, idea, relatively consistent, and converging all on 
the common point of a spiritual renovation of souls. That, we 
may affirm with entire confidence, is not within the compass of 
any human power. 

Of this, too, we have abundant evidence, besides that which 
rests in any mere judgment of human capacity. The whole 
religious and mythologic history of the world is such evidence. 
In the first place, every pagan religion, every mythology, is in 
form a supernatural machinery ; a fact which Mr Parker and 
others who endeavour to reduce Christianity to a common foot- 
ing with such mythologies, and so to a mere product of nature, 
have strangely overlooked. In the next place, what one of these 
pagan supernaturalisms has ever proposed the problem of salva- 
tion, or the deliverance of man from sin and the restoration of 
his divine consciousness ? — the only real problem, manifestly, 
that requires to be supernaturally solved. Again, what one of 
these mythologies proposes to erect the kingdom of God among 
men, or has any consistent and concentrated action bearing on 
that one result, or indeed on any other ? What one of them, 
we may ask, even proposes a pure morality ? So plainly im- 
possible is it for man or human history to develope any intelli- 
gent and rationally harmonious scheme of supernaturalism. 

And yet we have more convincing proofs even than these. 
See what figure is made by Mormonism, Mohammedanism, and 
the Komish Church, all of which begin with supernatural con- 
ceptions or data furnished by Christianity. If we will ascer- 
tain what it is in man to do, in the way of composing super- 
natural verities, see what additions or amendments these have 
furnished. The new faith of Mormon pretends to be Christian 
still, only it is a more complete and finished form of the Chris- 
tian truth. But the ungodly and profane mummeries it has 
added, in the new revelations of the book, the new priesthood, 
and the new sainthood, all of which are boasted and accepted 
as improvements, it is very plain are only mockeries of all the 
practical aims of the gospel, and of the virtues it came to 
restore. Mohammedanism, borrowing from the Christian Scrip- 



CANNOT BE Ok MAfl. 281 

tures, proposes for its aim, to perfect in men a heavenly virtue. 
But the doctrine of fatalism it establishes, forbids, at the outseff, 
every struggle after such heavenly virtue, and the sensual para- 
dise it promises, generates, as far as it goes, a habit opposite to 
everything in the nature of that virtue. 

But these, it will be said, are not, in any proper sense, 
developments of the Christian supernaturalism, at which they 
begin ; but tricks of knavery, or ravings of fanaticism. Pass 
then to the Romish Church, and see what the venerable, slow- 
moving wisdom of ages can do. Here we meet the councils, 
age after age, in their high deliberations. All the learning of 
the world, for many hundreds of years, is here concentrated. 
Heretical additions are here carefully scented, and promptly 
burnt out by the fires of purification. All determinations pass 
by debate, and sometimes by the debates of ages. The history 
is a process slow and laborious, like that which generates the 
common or the civil law ; and the result is even called a 
development of Christianity. What then do we find ? Is the 
glorious order and regenerative unity of the gospel, as a power 
of salvation, preserved and augmented, or is it overlaid and 
stifled, by a mass of antichristian inventions and corrupt tradi- 
tions, that have really no agreement with it ? And yet they 
are all introduced to give it greater effect. The exorcisms were 
to expel devils ; but the solemn trifling of the ceremony only 
turned the disciple away from faith, to look after powers of 
magic. The amulets were to be pledges, on the person, of 
God's keeping and defence, against devils and all disasters ; 
but these were accepted as charms also of magic. The sacra- 
ment itself of Christ's body and blood, ordained to be the 
vehicle and sign of a co-operative grace to the recipient, must 
needs be farther intensified in its power, and, to this end, was 
transmuted into the very substance of Christ, by a perpetual 
miracle ; which miracle, again, was taken as another feat of 
priestly magic, and watched as a pious incantation by the 
receiver. Celibacy and monastic retirement were to beget a 
higher and more superlative virtue ; turning out, instead, to be 
only the scandal and disgust of the world. Pictures were 
added to assist the mind in conceiving things high and remote ; 
operating, instead, as a stricture upon it, and chaining it down 
to a new antichristian idolatry. Ascetic practices were added, 
to chasten the soul and refine its spiritual fires ; only kindling, 



282 THIS COMPLETED SCHEME CANNOT BE OF MAN. 

instead, the fires of a new fanaticism. The way to Christ 
would be more easy, it was conceived, if His mother could be 
invoked to present the cause of the suppliant ; and lo ! Chris- 
tianity becomes no more a gospel of life, but a fantastic scheme 
of Mariolatry. A vicar of Christ was wanted, many thought, 
to represent Him on earth, and be a visible mark for their faith ; 
but the vicar displaced the principal, becoming a mark, instead, 
of superstitious homage, and a receiver of deific honours. 

And thus we have a proof irresistible of what man can do, in 
the way of thinking out or dressing up a scheme of supernatural 
truth. Four or five common persons, without learning or cul- 
ture, assisted by one other distinguished by higher advantages, 
have presented, we have seen, such a scheme. All the parts 
they have set in harmony with each other, and made them 
crystallize into the perfect unity of the plan. But here we find 
all the great minds of the Church, the learned, the wise, the 
prudent, and even the good, slowly elaborating their additions, 
or, as some will say, their developments, of the doctrine handed 
down to them, and producing just that which has no agreement 
whatever with its genuine import and the real movement it pro- 
poses — -joining, as the classic poet says, a "horse's neck to a 
man's head," and expanding the simple, life-giving truth, into 
such theatrical pomps and scholastic wisdoms, that a cap and 
bells would scarcely be a less appropriate honour. 

What, then, have we to do, after such a reference as this, but 
to gather up all these prominent facts, ideas, names, and doc- 
trines, which we have seen coalesce so perfectly in the central 
fact of a supernatural grace for the world, composing, when 
taken together, the total frame-work and complete virtuality of 
the gospel, and say that, in this secret and everywhere present 
water-mark, we read the signature of God. None but He could 
hare organized this heavenly kosmos that we call the gospel. 



THE WORLD GOVERNED SUPERNATURALLY. 283 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

THE WORLD IS GOVERNED SUPERNATURALLY, IN THE 
INTEREST OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Christianity, as planted by Christ, is a divine institute in the 
world, the particular design of which is to act remedially, as 
against the mischiefs introduced by sin, and propagated by the 
retributive causes of nature. The Holy Spirit also is, by the 
supposition, a divine force or deific agency inaugurated in the 
world, to carry on, through all the coming ages, this same new- 
creating work. Now, as there is but one Divine Being or God, 
who is entered thus into so great a work, with tokens of feeling 
so impressively indicated, it follows by a very short inference, if 
indeed by any inference at all, that the one God of the world, 
governing it always accordantly with Himself, must govern it 
in the interest of Christianity. Christianity, plainly, is either 
nothing to Him, or else it is more than any secondary thing ; 
the hinge of His counsel, the mission of His love, the grand, 
all-inclusive, and eternal aim of His purposes. And if this be 
true, He will not govern the world in a way that forgets or over- 
looks Christianity, but will govern it rather for Christianity's 
sake ; which, again, is the same as to say that He will govern 
it by a supernatural regimen, even as Christianity itself is a 
supernatural institution. 

Exactly this, too, is the assumption of Christ Himself. He 
openly claims the government of the world, as being in His 
interest, or at the disposal of his cause and kingdom, saying, 
— " All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." He is 
also declared by His apostle to have " ascended on high, leading 
captivity captive," that He might be a dispenser of divine gifts 
in this manner ; " for God hath set him at his own right hand, 



284 THE TWO KINDS OF PROVIDENCE. 

in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and 
hath put all things under his feet, that he might be head over 
all things to the Church." He also publishes, Himself, a doc- 
trine of prayer that supposes the same thing ; or that, if any 
one will ask in His name, or as abiding in Him and doing His 
will, he shall have his petition — guidance, light, deliverance, 
healing of the sick, support against enemies, power to work, 
patience to suffer — everything that supposes the government to 
be enlisted, as a supernatural providence, in the furtherance of 
his Christian welfare. 

Indeed, we shall not sufficiently understand the Christian 
ideas of providence, till we conceive it to be a twofold scheme 
of order and divine dispensation. Nature, in the first place, is 
a kind of providence, being so adjusted as to meet all the future 
uses it can, as nature, meet. But it requires little insight to 
perceive that it cannot meet those uses that suppose a need of 
deliverance from nature. Manifestly nature cannot rescue from 
the disorders produced by a retributive action of her own causes. 
And if all God's action were included in the operations of nature, 
nothing plainly could ever be done for man, as regards the wants 
of his sin, the cries of his repentance, or the struggles of his 
faith. Nature can throw him, and trample him, by her retri- 
butive causes, but she has no help to give him in rising or roll- 
ing back her causes. 

On this subject of providence, there is much of unregulated 
thought and crude speculation. Thus it is a greatly debated 
question, whether there is a special, or only a general provi- 
dence ? For it is conceived, by a certain class, that God has a 
special meaning or design, in some few things of their experi- 
ence, and not in others. This plainly is a faith of credulity, 
and one that accommodates God to the measures of human 
ignorance. Another class, who assume to be more philosophic, 
holding a general, and denying a special providence, only sub- 
stitute an absurdity for a superstition ; for what is a general 
providence, that comprehends no special providence, but a 
generality made up of no particulars ; that is, made out of 
nothing ? The only intelligent conception is, that every event 
is special, one as truly as another ; for nothing comes to pass 
in God's world without some particular meaning or design. 
And so the general providence is perfect, because the special is 
complete. 



— 



PROVIDENCE NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. 285 

And yet even this is no sufficient conception of providence. 
There is yet, after all, a real truth associated with the specialty 
view just stated, and covered, in part, by the scanty garb in 
which it is dressed; viz., that God is more warmly reciprocal 
with us and the struggles of our faith, in some things than in 
others — more reciprocal, that is, and closer to our want, and 
warmer to our feeling, in His supernatural providence, than 
He is in His natural. 

The truth will be set in a more definite light, if we conceive, 
first of all, that nature is a kind of constant quantity and fixed 
term between us and God. It needed to be so for many reasons. 
We could not even keep our feet if the ground had no stable 
quality. We could do nothing in the way of industry, attain to 
no exercise of power; there would be no law, no science, nothing 
to meet our intelligence ; we could not act responsibly toward 
each other without some constant, calculable, or known medium 
between us. We could apprehend no retributive force in nature, 
waiting by the laws of obligation, to be their sanction. Even 
God Himself would be a vague and desultory phantom, if He 
were not represented to us by the fixed laws and the orderly, 
enduring processes of nature. Without these, even the light 
and shade of His supernatural manifestation would be insignifi- 
cant — just as the living play of a countenance would signify 
nothing, if it had no lines of repose at which the play begins, 
and into which it returns. 

But, while such is nature, it is yet, as we have seen, sub- 
mitted, by its very laws, both to our supernatural action, and 
to that of God. As we act our liberty in it and upon it, 
never suspending or defrauding, even for a moment, any one of 
its laws, so it would be singular if He could not do the same, 
and that upon a scale correspondent with the magnificence of 
His attributes. So, in millions of ways, at every minute, the 
courses of things may be touched by His will, and turned 
about, as the holy Poet says of the cloud, " to do whatsoever he 
commandeth upon the face of the earth." By means of the con- 
stant element between us and God — limbered, though constant, to 
our common action — we are set in terms of reciprocity as living 
persons or powers, and are found acting, as toward each other, 
in a perpetual dialogue of parts. Taken thus, in the whole 
comprehension of its import, our world is nothing but a vast, 
special, supernatural, reciprocal providence, in which our God 



286 APART FROM SIN, WE WANT 

is reigning as an ever-present, ever-mindful counsellor and 
guide and friend, a Redeemer of our sin, a hearer of our 
prayers. It is not that He, long time ago, put causes at work 
to meet our wants, and answer our prayers, but that He 
worketh hitherto. He is no dead majesty, but a living ; and, 
if we want a special providence, He is special enough to give 
us His recognition. He will even teach us how to pray, 
correcting our petitions to make them meet His counsel, and 
giving us desires, levelled to the exact aim of His purposes ; 
even as the eagle teaches her young how to set their wings, 
and rest them on the air in flight. Not that He means, when 
speaking of things " agreeable to His will," that we are merely 
to come, guessing at things already fixed, and trying to suit 
our petition to the motion of the wheel as it rolls, sliding it 
carefully in at the right place, but that He will have us pray 
as in power ; for it is agreeable to His will that we have 
power with God, and prevail — power to come and lay our hand 
on His, as His is laid on the world's causes, and, by the suit 
of our want, emboldened by the acquaintanceship of our faith, 
to move that hand. And to just this end, as Christ Himself 
teaches, all things in heaven and earth are submitted pliantly 
to him, so that, without shock or miracle, He can, if He will, 
turn them to His friendly and gracious purposes. The world 
and its affairs are so to become co- efficients only of His gospel. 

Such is the conception Christianity holds of providence, or the 
providential government of the world — it is supernatural, it is 
Christly, and is to be relied upon ever, as a power operating for 
Christianity in the earth. Is the conception true, is it borne 
out by sufficient proofs ? This I shall now undertake to show. 

Let us note, in passing, however, as a fact introductory, that 
just such a government, as respects the mode, would be wanted 
and really required, apart from any fall of sin, or work of 
deliverance from it. For, if there be only nature, with her 
constant quantities and endlessly propagated causes, if there be 
no divine supernatural agency in the world, then there is no 
conceivable footing of society, or social relationship with God 
left us. Nature, in such a scheme, is only a machine, and that 
machine is all that we have contact with. And if we should 
maintain our uprightness, holding on in ways of unfaltering 
obedience, we shall none the less want to know God, and have 
our society with Him. But we get no terms of society in a 



A GOVERNMENT NOT MECHANICAL. 287 

machine, we cannot seek unto a wall. Acting supernaturally 
ourselves, we need also to be supernaturally met and acted on. 
Without this, we have no terms of reciprocity with God more 
than with a volcano or a tide of the sea. Society between us 
there is none. Society is rigidly definable, as being a super- 
natural commerce between parties acting supernaturally. As 
between us and God, it is a doing and receiving ; if we do not 
sin, a righteousness looking up to God in confidence, and a 
smile of approval looking down to commend and bless. But if 
there be no such thing as a Divine supernatural agency, then is 
no such footing of society conceivable. We exist as a solitary 
party. Nature is our cage, and the nearest approach we get 
to a recognition, is to find that we are shut up in it. Is it so ? 
Do any of us think it is so ? Did we really believe it, what 
could our existence be but a conscious defeat and mockery, a 
longing that is objectless, a breathing without air ? 

But our state is not a state of sinless obedience. We have 
set the retributive causes of nature against us, and Christianity 
undertakes to be our deliverer. And the claim now is, that 
the government of the world is supernaturally administered, so 
as to work with it. We allege, then, in evidence — 

I. That facts do not take place here, in human society, 
government, and the Church, as they should, if events were 
left to the mere causalities of nature, and were no way con- 
trollable by a supernatural ministration of divine government, 
or by some genuinely Christian providence, in the management 
of human affairs. 

The fact of sin is palpable, and is shown by evidences not to 
be questioned. What shock of disorder it must have given, or 
has in fact given, to the mundane kosmos, in all its parts, we 
have also shown. Taking now the supposition that there is 
nothing else but nature, and nature a scheme of universal cause 
and effect, that is, a machine, propagating its activities by its 
own organic laws, we ought to see no improvement, no advance, 
but a regular running down rather from bad to worse, and a final 
disappearance of all vestiges of order. Society and human 
capacity ought to sink away universally toward barbarism, and 
nature itself to grow weaker, more sterile, deeper in deformity 
and confusion. So it ought to be — speculatively viewed, or 
according to conditions of scientific order and law, nothing else 
could be. And yet we are just now taken with such confidence 



288 THINGS DO NOT TAKE PLACE 

of progress in our human history, as to imagine that progress is 
even a prime law of natural development itself. In which we 
are doubtless right as regards the general fact of progress (it is 
no fact as regards the savage races), but are only the more 
strangely blind to the higher fact which that progress indicates ; 
viz., the regenerative action of supernatural forces, that, in spite 
of the downward tendency of mere nature under sin, are 
creating always a new heavens and earth out of the ruins 
of the former beauty, and making even the losing experiences of 
evil conditions of spiritual and social progress. Plainly no such 
progress ever ought to be, or ever would be made, apart from 
the supernatural causes which are its spring. 

But there is a more deliberate way of testing this point, and 
a method of inquest that reaches farther. We turn ourselves to 
the courses and the grand events of human history, all that we 
include in the providential history of the world — the wars, 
diplomacies, emigrations, revolutions, persecutions, discoveries, 
and scientific developments of the world — and we are imme- 
diately met by the appearance of some wonderful consent or 
understanding between Christianity and the providential courses 
of things. Christianity is, in form, the supernatural kingdom 
and working of God in the earth. It begins with a supernatural 
advent of divinity, and closes with a supernatural exit of 
divinity ; and the divine visitant, thus entered into the world and 
going out from it, is Himself a divine miracle in His own person ; 
His works are miracles, and His doctrine quite as truly, and the 
whole transaction, taken as a movement on the world, or in it, 
that is not of it, supposes, in fact, a new and superior kind of 
administration, instituted by God Himself. Accordingly, if it 
be true that God is in such a work, having all the highest and 
last ends of existence rested in it, he ought to govern the world, 
as we have already said, for it, and so as to forward this as the 
main interest included in it. 

Now, whatever may be true as respects the positive and 
direct evidence of such a fact, this, at least, is a matter that will 
strike any one as being truly remarkable, and, moreover, as 
being quite unaccountable, except on the ground of its truth, 
that Christianity has never been exterminated, but still lives, and 
even holds a reigning power at the head of all learning, art, 
commerce, society, polity, and political dominion in the earth. 
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Zeno, Aristotle, Seneca, all these 



AS THEY OUGHT UNDER MERE NATURE. 289 

great founders and lawgivers in the world of philosophy, are 
gone ; the Academy and the Porch, and all the schools that were 
gathered by the wisdom and the mighty and beautiful thought of 
these first minds of the world, are scattered ; but Jesus, the 
unlettered rustic, lives, and His simple words, distinguished by 
no literary pretensions, and recorded only in the simplest and 
most fragmentary way, by the unlettered men that caught them, 
live also. Studied in deepest reverence, and expounded by all 
the richest, nicest learning of the world, and fed on by the pray- 
ing souls of the faithful in all walks and conditions of life, they 
are continually gathering new followers, and composing a larger 
school, to which no inclosures of Academy or Porch, nothing but 
kingdoms and continents, can think to give their name. Why 
now is it that time and the world's government conspire so 
powerfully with Jesus, and not with such a great and deeply 
cultured soul as Plato ? Why with Christianity, and not with 
any proudest school of human opinion ? All the mere human 
teachers are much closer to nature certainly than Jesus was ; 
and if the world's government is wholly natural, or in the interest 
of nature, it would seem to be a very plain inference that what 
belongs to nature will be most easily perpetuated. Why should 
a government, in the interest of nature, concur to enthrone and 
crown what is really supernatural ? 

Besides, nature, as we have seen, is a power acting retri- 
butively, in a process of self-chastisement and deterioration 
naturally endless, and upon this falling flood, or into it, Chris- 
tianity settles, to grapple with its mad causations, and roll 
them back, and hush their elemental war, by its words of 
peace ; how then is it, that a new, supernatural dispensation, 
which arrays itself at all points against nature and its penal 
disorders, erects upon the unsteady waters of so fickle and 
wild a sea, the only institution that for the last eighteen 
hundred years has been able to challenge the honours of per- 
manence ? If there be no power but nature, no government 
superior to the interest of nature, it certainly ought not to be so. 
On the contrary, whatever pretends to be supernatural, ought 
to die soonest, and show the greatest frailty — even as the 
pouring waters of Niagara may well enough keep on over the 
rapids, down the fatal leap, and no cessation make, even for 
millions of years ; whereas the slender, light-trimmed vessel, 
that sets her sails for the ascent of those same rapids, ought 



290 THINGS DO NOT TAKE PLACE 

not to stem them by one inch, and least of all, to become an 
institution in them, stiffly and steadily breasting the current 
for ages. And yet, if there were some Higher Providence 
governing those falls in the interest of the vessel, and not, as 
nature would, the vessel in the interest of the falls, then plainly 
it would no longer be absurd for that same frail craft to be- 
come an institution, even half way down the final leap itself. 

If it be suggested that other religions, such, for example, as 
Buddhism and Mohammedanism, are also supernatural in their 
form, and have survived, one of them a third longer, and the 
other two-thirds as long as Christianity, it is enough to reply, 
as regards the latter, that all the forces of reality it had were 
stolen from Christianity, and that, in spite of these, it is now 
just upon the death ; and, as regards the former, that while 
its machineries are in form supernatural, it really undertakes 
to do nothing as against the lapse and disability of nature, 
but rather settles into the same disorder with it, and takes a 
show of perpetuity, because it flows with the current, and wins 
a kind of permanence which is only another name for the 
disability it creates. This is true of all the false religions ; 
they belong to nature, and become constituent elements in that 
hell of disability which nature makes out of sin. Christianity 
rises, and raises its adherent races with it. These others fall, 
and finally die, when their adherent races die out of the 
world, assisting and hastening that event, each in its own way. 
When, therefore, we consider that Christianity goes directly 
into a conflict with nature, calling nature death, and engaging 
to combat the death by its regenerative power, and that still, 
after so many centuries, it holds on victorious, what shall we 
infer with greater certainty, than that the government of the 
world is with it, in its interest, engaged to give it success ? 
Without or apart from this fact, it plainly could not have 
held its ground, even for a single year. No ! Christianity 
stands, and will, because the God of Christianity is the God 
of the world. The kingdom is not moved, and cannot be_, as 
it certainly should under a mere providence of natural causes, 
and that for the manifest reason that all power in heaven and 
in earth is given into the hands of the king. And this brings 
us to a 

II. Argument which is more general and more positive, viz., 
. this, that, if we could make a perfectly intelligent survey of the 



AS THEY OUGHT UNDER MERE NATURE. 291 

great world's history itself, and see how its principal events are 
turned, we should only discover the same thing on a larger 
scale ; that the world itself is governed in the interest of 
Christianity or the supernatural grace and kingdom of Jesus 
Christ. We plainly cannot undertake any such review, for the 
reason that no human insight is equal to the task ; but if we 
just glance along the inventory, so to speak, of the matters of 
this history, recalling chapters by their titles, and only having 
in mind the relation of so many things to the central figure, 
Christ and His kingdom, we shall find that, in His glorious 
person, we get the key by which their mystery and meaning 
are solved, their practical harmony expounded. 

Thus we have the Jewish dispersion, before Christ, in all the 
principal cities of the world, and the establishment there of the 
synagogue worship ; so that, when the apostles go abroad with 
their message, they have places in which to speak made ready, 
assemblies gathered, and what is more than all, minds prepared 
by Jewish symbols and associations, to receive the meaning of 
the new gospel, as related to a first dispensation of law ; with- 
out which, as we have seen, its true place in God's economy is 
undiscovered ; without which, too, it is bolted into the world, 
separately from all historic connexions, and from all the evi- 
dences to be shown for it, by its fulfilment of ideas hid in 
ancient rites and forms. 

Next we observe that philosophy had just now culminated 
among the Greeks and Romans, and was giving way as a force 
that is spent. The Sophists had run it into the ground. Faith 
in it was gone, and with that, all faith too in the gods of their 
religion. In this manner a deep and painful hunger was pre- 
pared, and multitudes of the most thoughtful minds were 
actually groping after the very food which Christ was to 
bring. 

At this time, too, the Greek tongue, which, for ages to come, 
was to be the general vehicle of thought and commerce between 
the peoples of the world, had become, to a great extent, the 
vernacular of the country, and a Gentile speech or medium was 
thus made ready to receive and convey the grace that is given 
to the Gentiles. 

The Romans, too, are now masters of the country, and the 
Roman empire, of which it is become an integral part, is well 
nigh universal. When Christ therefore is crucified, it is, as it 



292 PREPARATION OF THE WORLD FOR CHRIST. 

should be, the public act of the world, decreed by the Roman 
procurator in the name of the world. There is also now a more 
open state of society between the nations and races of mankind 
than was ever known before ; because they are all, in fact, one 
empire. The apostles, therefore, may well enough go into all 
the world, as they are bidden, because the pass of a Roman 
citizen is good in all the world. 

It has also been noted as a remarkable fact, that when the 
Incarnate Word appears it is a time of general peace ; and it 
is remarkable, not only as a matter of poetic fitness or aesthetic 
propriety, but still more in the deeper and more cogent sense of 
a practical necessity ; for if Christ had come, in the tumult of 
a time of war, His glorious but gentle appeal of truth and love 
would have been utterly drowned and lost. In the din of so 
great noise and passion, who could feel his want of a salva- 
tion ? who be attracted by the beauty of a character ? who de- 
scend to a cross to look for the Incarnate Word, and catch His 
mournful testimony ? 

Take now these familiar facts, and what are they all but a 
visible preparation of human history for Christ, showing on 
how vast a scale the world is managed in the interests of Christ 
and His supernatural advent ? Why else, too, do they all con- 
cur in time, when they might as well have happened centuries 
apart ? Whence comes it that, when human history has been 
brewing in so great a ferment for so many ages, all these great 
preparations should just now be ready, calling for the king with 
their common voice and saying, "the fulness of time is come ?" 

As it was with the events that preceded and prepared the 
gospel, so it has been with those which followed its publication. 
They give us their true sense and gauge of power, in the fact 
that they inaugurate a new era, called the Christian era. 
And what are we to see in the simple Anno Domini of our 
dates and superscriptions but that, for some reason, the great 
world-history has been bending itself to the lowly person of 
Jesus, from the hour of His miraculous advent onward through 
so many centuries of time. The Christian era ! a new forma- 
tion, speaking geologically, in the domain of human life and 
society ! Christ, who is called by many the impossible, the in- 
credible person, the gospelled carpenter raised into a mythic 
divinity — to Him it is that the great world has so long bent 
itself, and dated its history from His year ! So clearly is it 



SUBSEQUENT HISTORY MANAGED FOR CHRIST. 293 

signified, that the government of the world is waiting on Chris- 
tianity, and working in its interest, and is thus, in highest 
virtuality, a supernatural kingdom. 

The events themselves of the new era indicate the same thing. 
First, we hear Porphyry, and other assailants of the gospel, 
complaining strangely that their gods are grown dumb, refusing 
any more to heal or give oracles. The Jewish unbelievers are 
smitten next with a token of discouragement even more appal- 
ling in the terrible siege and dreadful overthrow of their holy 
city ; in which they are shown, as convincingly as possible, that 
God has brought their ancient specialty of theocratic rule and 
distinction to a full end — just that which even prophecy had 
foretold as the inaugural of a universal religion. After long and 
bitter persecutions, Constantine is finally enrolled as a convert, 
and Christianity takes the ascendant above all the gods of the 
empire. The northern hordes begin to pour down the Alps, 
over-running the distracted and worn-out civilizations of the 
empire, and conquering, in fact, a religion by which they are 
themselves to be tamed and socially regenerated. The false 
prophet appears, propagating his new dispensation by the fierce 
apostleship of arms, and the world is to be shown what is the 
value of a triune grace and gospel, by a grand collateral experi- 
ment, in which both trinity and grace are wanting. The cru- 
saders follow in successive repetitions of defeat and disaster ; as 
if God's purpose were to stamp it on the Christian sense of the 
nations that Christianity is forbidden by the eternal proprieties 
of its mission to strengthen itself by any victories but those of 
peace. The discovery of the mariner's compass leads off the 
discoveries of Vasco de Gama and Columbus. Printing is in- 
vented, and the age of learning revived. This prepares the 
great Reformation of religion ; for it, Luther ; and for Luther, 
God so musters forces^ as to give him always civil protection, 
keeping him in fortress, and compelling even the combined fury 
of kings and kingdoms to pass by harmless. The Puritans are 
driven out of England to plant their gospel of liberty and light 
on the shores of a new world. Cromwell breaks down the mon- 
archy to inaugurate, in England, religious toleration ; so to 
regenerate the laws and political liberties of the English nation. 
The American Revolution, followed by the federal constitution, 
fulfils the Christian aim of Puritanism, and lays all claims and 
titles of legitimacy at the feet of human liberty and progress, 



2H SUBSEQUENT HISTORY MANAGED FOR CHRIST. 

The wars of Napoleon follow, by which the oppressive dynasties 
of Europe are broken up or shattered, to let in the light of a 
new age of improvement. The revelations of Christian science, 
meantime, are uncovering and transforming the world, tenfold - 
ing its forces and uses, and all that constitutes its value, in a 
single generation. The grand commercial apostleship of steam 
and telegraph, hurrying the intercourse and shortening the dis- 
tances of the ends of the world, fixes the superiority of the 
Christian nations, and prepares the speedy sovereignty of the 
Christian ideas. 

"What now do we distinguish in these facts, but an outstand- 
ing, world-wide proof of the truth we just now stated, that the 
government of the world is in the interest of Christianity, and 
so far is itself a really continuous supernatural administration ! 
These events are a kind of providential procession that we see, 
marching on to accomplish the one given result, the universal 
and final ascendency of Jesus Christ. They march, too, in the 
beat of time, preserving their right order, and appearing, each, 
just when it is wanted, not before or after. When has it ever 
been seen that the government of the world was conspiring, in 
this large historic way, across the distance of remote ages, with 
any merely natural man, his teachings, or plans, or work ? 
Whatever else may be true, this at least is plain, that between 
Christianity as a fabric all- supernatural, concerned for nothing 
but to do a supernatural work, and the world as mere nature, 
suffering nothing above nature to be, there ought to be, and 
indeed never could be any such concurrence. Besides, the 
progress indicated by these facts is plainly impossible on the 
footing of mere nature; for nature, under sin, becomes, we have 
seen, a grand destructive causality rather, such as, running by 
its own mechanical laws, can of course breed no result of self- 
restoration, but must run itself downward, instead, into a worse 
and more fatal deterioration. 

But it will be imagined by some, that these are facts which 
we obtain by gleaning ; that, meantime, there is an abundance 
equally copious of adverse facts, such as have no concurrence with 
the gospel of Christ, but seem, instead, to offer only hindrance. 
What account, for example, can we make of the dark ages so 
called, and of the confessedly base corruptions that have been al- 
lowed to over-run Christianity as a doctrine of faith and salvation ? 

To this I answer, that, by this question, rightly viewed, is 



SUBSEQUENT HISTORY MANAGED FOR CHRIST. 295 

opened one of the most fruitful and convincing chapters of 
Christian evidence ; showing, as no other does, that Christianity 
is upheld by nothing but the fact, that the government of the 
world is with it. What could follow, but a corruption of Chris- 
tianity, at the beginning, from our very belief in it ? for by our 
faith we bring ourselves to it as a contribution ; contributing, of 
course, our misbegotten opinions, our confused passions, our 
habits, prejudices, weaknesses of every kind, and so infusing our 
poison, more or less hurtfully, into that which saves us ; even 
as the patient will communicate his plague to his physician, or 
the bad wine give its smell to the jar into which it is poured. 
The disciple will as certainly give his form to Christianity, when 
he preaches it, or commends it, as he will receive a regenerated 
life from it. The new gospel, accordingly — it could not be other- 
wise — will go into a grand process of corruption, at first, such 
as will perchance be called improvement, and the problem of 
history will be, to settle and discriminate the truth, by winnow- 
ing out the forms of human error and corruption from it. With- 
out some process of this kind, it could never be seen what really 
belongs to the gospel, and what to the unwisdom and unbelief 
of those in whom it dwells. As the gospel was revealed to sin, 
so there was a different kind of necessity that the gospel should 
be revealed experimentally through sin. Man, the believer, 
must, in other words, be allowed to try his hand upon it, and 
make it his gospel — make it wiser by his philosophy, stronger 
by his regal patronage, more conspicuous and stately by the 
paraphernalia of forms and the robed officials he may dress up 
for its due embodiment. 

This is that mystery of iniquity that an apostle saw, even in 
his time, beginning to work ; which he said must work, till it 
should be taken out of the way. This is that falling away first, 
that must come, the man of sin that must be revealed. It is 
not the papacy exactly, but that which made the papacy; viz., 
faith, not able, without a severe schooling, to mind the distinc- 
tion between a subjection to and a supervision of the gospel ; 
for, in becoming responsible for it as a servant, what will the 
new believer more certainly do than take it in charge, patronize 
it, mend it, that is, disfigure and hide it ? And there will be 
no limit to this wrong. Unable to stay content with the humble 
guise and the simple doctrine of the cross, he will exalt himself 
unwittingly above what is called God in the work, and will go on 



226 THE DARK AGES ACCOUNTED FOR. 

to be so grand a supervisor, that finally, as his sins are added 
to the forwardness of his service, we shall begin to see that ho 
has contributed his whole self, and even taken God's seat, in his 
preposterous ambition ; becoming first the minister, then the 
vicar, and last of all, to give a true name, the usurper of God's 
authority. Christianity is now in his charge, and is not im- 
proved by his additions. Disappointment follows ; this compels 
a reconsideration, this a reformation, and so the true gospel is 
finally restored, with its reasons only certified, by the human 
abuse through which it has passed, and the lines of contrast 
drawn by so many miserable corruptions. 

Thus, at a very early period, we hear such men as Justin 
and Clement of Alexandria, proposing to give the Christian 
doctrine the dress of a philosophy, and find them earnestly at 
work to accomplish a point of so great consequence, imagining 
that so it will be more able to command the respect of the 
learned, and will better satisfy the want of the world. The 
work goes on, till, at last, some centuries of dialectic industry 
may be said to have completely finished all that could be done, 
when lo ! the beautiful life-giving truths of Christ, offered by 
Him to faith, are converted into a dry, scholastic jingle, ad- 
dressed to speculative reason, without value even to that, and 
as easily rejected as embraced. Monasticism and vows of 
celibacy are added in the same way, to give Christianity, in 
certain special examples, the advantage of a more superlative 
virtue than God had planned for, in the practical relations of 
life ; finally to result in corruptions too monstrous ever to have 
been gendered in those relations. Constantine, having become 
a disciple, must needs contribute not his person only, but all 
the power of his throne, to the gospel, expecting in that man- 
ner to make it partake of his imperial pre-eminence, and be- 
come strong by a strength thus contributed. Uniting it, in 
this manner, to the state, he not only stays the woes of perse- 
cution, but he lifts the Church into a rank of political ascen- 
dency ; which is the same as to say that he dooms it, for ages 
to come, to be the mother of all unholy arts and oppressions, 
and the source of unspeakable public miseries. Gregory the 
Great can find no rest to his prayers, till the Church is consoli- 
dated under the acknowledged primacy of St Peter ; and when 
it is done, he may fitly rest in his prayers, having made the 
Church such an organ of abuses, oppressions, and religious woes, 



THE DAEK AGES ACCOUNTED FOR. 297 

as the world had never seen before, and never will see again. 
Images and pictures are at length set up in the holy places, 
under the fair pretence that they are needed to represent the 
spiritual truths of religion to the eye, and so to accommodate 
the apprehension of weak and ignorant minds. And, then, 
finally, behold ! as the fruit of so great an improvement, whole 
nations of people worshipping the images, and before them, 
transformed into nations of idolaters ! 

So the mystery works, and so the true gospel is becoming 
distinguished from the false, the gospel of the Son of God from 
man's gospel of additions, improvements, and airy conceits. As 
Christ revealed His gospel by communication, so here it is 
revealed again, as it needs must be, by the light and shade of 
historical experiment; settled, or adjusted, or practically de- 
fined, by use and abuse. These facts appear to be entirely 
adverse to Christianity. They are so, and, in that, have their 
value. That the government of the world, therefore, has 
passed by on the other side, and let Christianity fall in these 
facts, we are not to suppose. Being a gift to human liberty, it 
could not otherwise be established. When the experiment is 
finished, then the Divine Word will burst up into a second com- 
ing, through the human incrustations, consuming by His breath 
and destroying by His brightness the accumulated wisdoms and 
pomps of His mistaken followers. In all these losing agencies, 
there is yet no loss. The dark ages we speak of are yet in no 
backward motion. Still the march of Christian history is on- 
ward. If these bad impediments were not already raised, why, 
then, they were yet to be raised. Just so far on its way to the 
state of universal dominion, is the gospel and supernatural 
kingdom of Jesus Christ. 

Still there have been events, it must be admitted, in what 
is called Christian history, which are darker and more difficult 
of solution. They appear, at first view, to have no place under 
a scheme of providential government, such as we are now sup- 
posing. And yet if we could hold a longer reach of times, 
and seize the connexions of history with a broader grasp of in- 
telligence, they might fall into place and become as transparent, 
under such a scheme, as any other. As it is, we can only 
suggest possibilities, and start guesses, and rest till our facul- 
ties grow to the dimensions of the subjects. What does it 
mean, for example, that the Jesuits and the Council of Trent 



298 ADVERSE FACTS PROBABLY CONSISTENT. , 

were able to stop, or set a limit to, the Reformation of the 
Church ? We cannot answer, and probably shall never know. 
Like all evil, it may be referrible to the necessary scope of 
human liberty. Or it may be that the Reformation itself was 
a tiling too incomplete and partial to be allowed a sweep of 
universal triumph. It might have been a great disaster to the 
religion of Christ, to be resolved into a mere reformationism, 
and left confronted by no antagonistic force. Why, again, was 
it, or how, that the Churches of Northern Africa were allowed 
to be over-run by barbarians, and finally, in the loss of their 
faith, to give way utterly, and fall into extinction, before a bar- 
barous religion ? Was it that occasional examples of loss and 
retrocession must be suffered, in order to the enforcement of a 
just responsibility for the gospel in its adherents and followers, 
otherwise ready to assume that, having God for its author, it 
will take care of itself? This we cannot answer, but we can 
without difficulty imagine it to be so. Why, again, were the 
French Huguenots, the religious hope and glory of their time, 
suffered to be butchered or expelled the kingdom ? Was it 
that so many great and noble men might endanger again the 
simplicity of the truth, and could only give their most valuable 
testimony for Christ by their death or exile ? Or was it that 
Calvinism itself, preparing, at this time, to establish a new 
type of individualism under its doctrine of an electing and 
special grace, and so to inaugurate a new state of ecclesiastical 
and civil liberty, might have stiffened, having God's decrees all 
with it, into a form of Christian absolutism too closely resem- 
bled to the faith of Mahommed, and must needs be tempered 
therefore, in this manner, by the experience of a predestinating 
counsel opposite, shaking even it to its fall ? Or, if we ask, 
why it is that so great decay of faith is suffered in Germany 
and in the Christian world generally, at the present time ; why 
it is that learning is turned against the gospel, to explain it 
away, or reduce it to the terms of nature and speculative 
reason ? the question may be dark to many, and may seem to 
admit no satisfactory answer. Still, to any one who has 
thought deeply, it will be something to ask whether it was 
possible for the principle of faith ever to be set in its true post 
of honour, till the relations of nature and the supernatural are 
settled by a thorough discussion, such as brings every truth of 
Christianity into question ? 



ADVERSE FACTS PROBABLY CONSISTENT. 299 

On the whole, we discover nothing in any of these darkest 
and most adverse facts of history, to shake our conviction that 
the world is governed, as we said at the beginning, in the in- 
terest of the incarnation or supernatural advent of Jesus Christ. 
Almost all the great staple events of history reveal this fact, in 
forms of palpable evidence, and if in some it seems to be less 
plain, there is yet nothing in them to dislodge our faith, even 
for a moment. Besides, we have always before us the one 
majestic fact, that Christianity still lives. The Church, being 
a supernatural institution, all history bends to it, and it proves 
its sublime peculiarity in the fact, that it is for ever indestruc- 
tible by time and its changes. The schools of Pythagoras, and 
all the great teachers after him, have flourished for a day, and 
vanished — tokens all of the necessary frailty of mere natural 
wisdom — but the Church of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene teacher, 
stands from age to age. It began with a feeble knot of dis- 
ciples, it has spread itself over a vast field or kingdom, includ- 
ing in its ample scope all the foremost nations and peoples of 
the world. Persecution has not crushed it, power has not 
beaten it back, time has not abated its force, and, what is most 
wonderful of all, the abuses and treasons of its own friends 
have never shaken its stability. Mohammedanism, punctually 
served, and to the letter, by the bigoted fidelity of its adherents, 
grows old and dies in a much shorter time. Christianity, be- 
trayed, corrupted, made to be the instrument of unutterable 
woes, by its disciples, is yet forbidden to die. God will not let 
the dissensions, the treasons, the unutterable and abominable 
profligacies, that are mortal to the life of other institutions, 
have any power of death upon it ; upholding it visibly Himself, 
and showing by that sign, as He could by nothing else, that the 
settled purpose of His will is to establish it as the universal 
religion. . 

But the government of the world includes, in its largest view, 
the interior history of souls. Before we arrive at Christianity, 
therefore, what we there call the domain of the Spirit, and of 
spiritual experience, is to be classed under providential history. 
We cite, therefore, in this connexion, 

III. As a distinct argument, the spiritual changes wrought in 
men, and the testimony given by the subjects of such changes. 
Nothing is better attested than the fact that men of our race, 
whether under Christianity or without any knowledge of its 



30!) THE INTERNAL GOVERNMENT 

truths, do undergo changes of character and life, that can no 
way be accounted for without some reference to a supernatural 
power, such as Christianity affirms in the doctrine of the Spirit. 
The subjects themselves can nowise account for the change, 
except by the supposition of a Divine agency in them superior 
to the laws of natural development, and also to any force of will 
they could themselves exert on their own dispositions, and the 
moral habit of their previous life. 

To change the type of a character, and above all to do it in 
such a manner that, from and after a given date, it shall be 
confessedly different, more widely different than if a thief were 
to become suddenly honest, a licentious man suddenly and deli- 
cately pure, a violent gentle, a cowardly heroic — this, it will be 
agreed, is a thing most difficult to be accomplished. Many 
will even declare it to be impossible ; nothing more is possible, 
they will say, than for the subjects to set their will to a refor- 
mation, which doubtless they may do at any given moment, 
but, in doing it, how far off are they still from any change of 
character ; persisting against what struggles of perverse habit, 
heaving spasmodically under what loads of corruption, ready to 
fall again, how easily, back into what has all the while been 
and still is their character. But if they do, perchance, succeed 
in finally changing anything, how slowly must the change be 
wrought. Even as one habit gives way to another by a long 
and wearisome reiteration of practice. Exactly so it is, we ad- 
mit, with all changes in mere natural character, all improve- 
ments in the plane of the natural life. If there is no force 
but mere will, acting in this plane, to change us, there can be 
no sudden reverse of character ; no reverse at all, which is more 
radical than what the phrenologist give us to expect, when 
they set us on courses of practice, to increase or diminish, given 
lobes of brain under the bony casement of the skull. Whoever 
undertakes any such improvement of his character, in a bad 
point, doing it by his will, we expect to see relapse and fall 
back. We have a way, indeed, of saying, "It is in him," when 
a bad man is repressing his particular sin ; by which we mean 
to intimate our conviction that what is in him will assuredly 
come out and show itself, even more flagrantly than ever. Thus 
we reason, and we are right in it, if no account be made of 
faith and the influence of a supernatural power. 

Thus it was that Celsus reasoned, utterly denying the credi- 



OF SOULS IS WITH CHRIST. 301 

bility of any sudden change of character from bad to good, such 
as the Christians spoke of; for, not being in the faith of Christ, 
he had no conception of the supernatural efficacy embodied in 
His plan of salvation. He says, " Those who are disposed by 
nature to vice, and accustomed to it, cannot be transformed by 
punishment much less by mercy ; for to transform nature is a 
matter of extreme difficulty." He did not understand, alas ! 
what "mercy" is. But Origen does. Having it revealed in 
him, by his own holy experience, he replies, how beautifully, 
" "When we see the doctrine Celsus calls foolish, operate as with 
magical power, when we see how it brings a multitude at once 
from a life of lawless excesses to a well regulated one, from .un- 
righteousness to goodness, from timidity to such strength of 
principle that, for the sake of religion, they despise even death, 
have we not good reason for admiring the power of this 
doctrine ?"* 

The picture given by Justin Martyr corresponds ; at once 
proving itself by its own beauty, and revealing the hand of the 
Divine Spirit by whom it is wrought. " "We, who once were 
slaves to lust, now delight in purity of morals ; we, who once 
prized riches and possessions above all things, now contribute 
what we have to the common use ; we, who once hated and 
murdered each other, and on account of our differences would 
not have a common hearth with those of the same tribe, now 
live in common with them, and pray for our enemies, and 
endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly, that, living 
according to the admirable counsels of Christ, they may enjoy a 
good hope of obtaining the same blessings with ourselves, from 
God the ruler of us all." 2 

That changes such as these are sometimes wrought in men 
and societies of men, under the gospel of Christ, we certainly 
know. There is almost no one who has not some time witnessed 
such examples. And yet, where communities are taken, the 
results will be so far mixed by cases of spurious faith, of 
hypocrisy, of backsliding, and apostasy, as to blur and sadly 
confuse the evidence displayed. Our best and least ambiguous 
examples of spiritual renovation, therefore, will be found in the 
case of individual persons. 

The case of Paul is familiar, and it is remarkable that no 
other ancient human character comes to us attested, in its 

1 Neander's Memorials of Christian Life, p. 17. 2 Ibid. p. 61. 



302 THE INTERNAL GOVERNMENT 

genuineness, by such evidence. Whatever the learned critics 
say, or assume to show, concerning the Gospels, there is cer- 
tainly no myth in the Epistles. When they come to these, 
their theory breaks down, their occupation is gone. That such 
a man as Pliny lived, and such a man as Cicero, is not as well 
attested, or shown by as good evidence, as that Paul the apostle 
lived, wrote the epistles ascribed to him, and bore the double 
character, first of a persecutor and fierce enemy of the cross, 
then, by the grace of God revealed in him, that of a preacher of 
the cross ; sacrificing all things, enduring all pains and severities, 
for the name of Christ, his Master. This change, he tells us, 
was a change supernaturally wrought, gives us the day and the 
hour on which his bad career was stopped, and shows him- 
self to us and all the world from that moment onward to be 
another man. From a most bitter and relentless persecutor he 
has become a believer in Christ — the most powerful and chief 
advocate of His gospel. A profound self-evidence verifies the 
man and the change, and the divine life in him is not less 
visible. His own account of the change, which he testifies 
openly in every place, is that, " by the grace of God," he is 
what he is — ■" new-created in Christ Jesus unto good works." 

And of such examples the Church is full in all ages. By 
some wondrous providence in souls, if we do not accept the 
Christian mystery of the Spirit, a stream of new creative power 
from God is entering into men's hearts, transforming their lives, 
and with this one uniform result that, if Christianity is a fiction 
or a myth, it makes them, as certainly its friends and disciples 
as it makes them bitter and more akin to God. 

Augustine, for example, was, before his conversion, a less 
violent and bloody man than Paul, had far less pretence of 
virtue, and a much feebler sense of principle, and was, in fact, 
a really less hopeful person as regards the prospect of his be- 
coming a holy character. And yet, from a given moment, on- 
ward, which moment is exactly specified in his " Confessions," 
he becomes another character. Neither can it be said that he 
was turned about thus suddenly by some fit of superstition. 
He was not a superstitious character, but a loose, free-thinking, 
sensual person, whose habit was opposed to the spiritualities in 
every form. His own account of his conversion is, that it was 
the prayers of his saintly mother which took hold of him, 
drawing down upon him from above that divine influence anu 



OF SOULS IS WITH CHRIST. 303 

grace by which his life was so remarkably changed. We can 
see, too, for ourselves, in his whole subsequent life, his action, 
his temper, his great and massive thoughts, his burning con- 
templations, that he is lifted above his natural force, to be a 
man above himself. The rhetorician is gone, and the apostle 
has taken his place. 

The conversion of Raymond Lull, of Colonel Gardiner, of 
John Newton, of Dr Nelson, and of hundreds whom we know, 
as our living contemporaries in the Church, corresponds. The 
number is so great in fact, examples of the kind so familiar, 
that any attempt to specify names must be insignificant. A 
great many supposed changes of the kind turn out, as we admit, 
to have no sound reality, and are followed by no correspondent 
change of life. It would be so as a matter of course ; just 
as there will be spurious examples of honesty, honour, and 
courage. But the spurious no more disproves the true in one 
case than in the other. The question is simply this, whether, 
in given cases, we do not see men entered, more or less sud- 
denly, by what is called their conversion, into another and dif- 
ferent kind of life ; the violent becoming gentle, the deceitful 
true, the covetous unworldly and liberal, the selfish benevolent 
and self-denying, profanity changed to prayer, drunkenness to 
sobriety, revenge to long-suffering, blood-thirstiness to love and 
compassion ; the subject becoming thus, in truth, from that 
time onward, a confessedly new man, in all these his several 
habits and relations ? We are all familiar, certainly, with such 
examples. They are among the most prominent and impressive 
facts in the interior personal history of mankind. And they 
are so well attested, in myriads of cases, by the practical re- 
sults of the life, as to make the unbelief which denies their 
verity, or classes them as examples of spiritual illusion, a pre- 
judice that amounts to weakness, or supposes a real incapacity 
for evidence. 

Now in these changes of spiritual experience, called conver- 
sions, the Christian word, and the truths of the life of Jesus, 
are commonly supposed to have an important instrumentality. 
The subjects uniformly say it, in the confessions they witness. 
They suppose that God, revealed in Christ, is so, by a trans- 
mission inward, revealed in their consciousness. But if Christ 
was only a simple, natural man, and if all which is reported of 
Him in the Gospels, transcending the supposition of His simple 



304 MEN ARE NOT CONVERTED 

humanity, is wild excess or legendary exaggeration, the account 
wnich refers these inward changes or conversions to Christ, can 
hardly be true. That any mere illusion should be followed, age 
after age, by such wondrous and manifestly real changes, mak- 
ing human souls visibly akin to God, is not to be supposed. 
That would be to account for the soundest and profoundest facts 
of human history, by referring them to causes most purely fanci- 
ful, and doctrines wide of all true intelligence. 

Here, then, we find ourselves, with these facts on our hands, 
without any Christian truth to account for them. For when 
we have dismissed the Gospels, or thrown them aside as unre- 
liable or incredible, these facts are not annihilated. These con- 
verts, these transformed men — the grandest truths, and most 
quickening powers, and most glorious characters, in human 
history — are still left, living and blooming and blessing their 
times, for all these eighteen centuries. They certainly are no 
fictions, or myths, or fables of tradition. They testify all that 
they are consciously transformed by some Divine power. A 
kind of gospel is in them. God has wrought in them, if Chris- 
tianity has not. Only it is remarkable that when they are so 
transformed by His inner visitation, they immediately declare 
for Christ, and cleave to Him with ineradicable affection. We 
seem thus, in fact, to discover that, as we are casting Christi- 
anity away, the government of the world is turning the inmost 
heart of the repenting and holy toward it, and giving, in that 
manner, indisputable evidence that it is itself willing, whether 
we are so or not, to serve in the interest of Christianity. 

It does not appear to have been as carefully considered as it 
should be by the disciples of naturalism in what manner these 
converts, and the testimony they give, is to be disposed of. 
For, in our view, they are even a more intractable subject to 
handle than the Gospels themselves. To deny the reality of 
their change, and reduce their whole life and experience to a 
matter of illusion, requires a degree of effrontery and personal 
conceit that would repel any critic of only ordinary intelligence. 
For in these Christian myriads are grouped almost all the 
greatest scholars, philosophers, and lawgivers, the most revered 
and stateliest names, the most beautiful and holiest characters 
of Christendom. 

It cannot be said that these conversions are in any sense 
natural, or produced by natural causes, in the feeling and ecu 



BY NATURE OR BY SELF-WILL. 305 

dition of the subjects. Their affinities are all visibly trans- 
cendent, and their life itself is, in one view, a kind of protest 
against nature and withdrawment from it. 

They are not changed, in this manner, by their own mere 
will. Whoever believes that a mortal man can take hold of the 
moral jargon into which his thoughts and passions are cast by 
sin, willing himself back, item by item, into peace and harmony 
and the ennobled consciousness of good, ought to be able to 
believe in Christianity much more easily. A bad man may 
reduce or hold in check the evil instigations of his habit by his 
mere will ; he may even drag himself into positive acts of duty 
and observance, and become a sturdy legalist in the practices of 
virtue ; but to bring himself out into a luminous, joyous, and 
spontaneous virtue, and make himself free in good, as having 
the principle installed in his heart, is a different thing. No- 
thing, in short, is wider of all rational belief than that the con- 
verted men or disciples of Christianity could make the beginning 
act the part, fashion the character, kindle the fires, and conquer 
the elevations, visibly displayed in their life, doing it by their 
human will. 

But there is a certain inspiration, it may be said, that flows 
into men from the ideas they assume. Thus it may be con- 
ceived that the supposed convert, in these remarkable transfor- 
mations of life and character, received first a theological pre- 
conception that a change thus and thus described is necessary 
to his salvation ; and then, having his imagination powerfully 
excited by the struggles of supposed guilt and danger he is in, 
he conceives at last, that the change required is actually passed 
upon him ; whereupon he is set forward in high impulse into a 
new style of life, correspondent with the auspicious hallucina- 
tion that has triumphed over his sin. And this is really the 
most plausible account that can be made of these changes in 
the interior history of souls, which does not suppose them to be 
referrible to a supernatural divine agency or providence. 

But what kind of mind is it that can be satisfied with one 
of its wise inventions, when, to account for the highest and 
divinest range of fact in man's spiritual history, it supposes 
whole myriads of the strongest minds and noblest characters to 
have been inspired with so much goodness all their lives long 
by a hallucination ? 

In the next place, we are led to inquire why it is that men 



806 NOT CONVERTED BY THEIR PRECONCEPTIONS. 

pass no such crisis of inspiration in other matters ? Whence 
comes it that, having formed some preconception of honesty, 
truth, purity, wisdom, art, the auspicious hallucination that is 
to shape their transformation does not suddenly take them up, 
as here, and carry them forward into the inspired liberty ? 
Why do not men become heroes, poets, lawgivers, in this man- 
ner? Have they not thoughts enough of being thus distin- 
guished ? and are not such kind of thoughts in them commonly 
hallucinations ? 

But it is not true, in a very great multitude of cases, that 
any such preconception has been taken up. What thought 
had Paul, on the way to Damascus, of being converted to 
Christ as the necessary condition of his salvation ? As little 
had Augustine, till his mind was opened from within to such a 
thought. Besides, we have multitudes of cases in our own 
time, where any such manner of accounting for the change of 
character actually wrought is plainly inadequate ; cases, for 
example, where there is too little of personal vigour to carry 
out any preconception, even if a beginning were made in that 
manner. Thus a ministerial acquaintance, whose name is 
before the nation and the world, as a public name, had living 
in the place where he was pastor, a short- witted person, gene- 
rally taken for an idiot, who, in addition to his natural dis- 
advantages, was deep in the vices of profanity and drunkenness. 
At a time of general attention to the things of religion, this 
forlorn being came to him to inquire the way of salvation. The 
first impulse of prudence was to put him off, as being incapable 
of religious experience, and as one who would only turn it into 
mockery by his absurdities. On farther consideration, it was 
found to be rather a duty to give him even the greater atten- 
tion, according to the proportion of his want. In a few days, 
it became a subject of mirth, with all the light-minded class of 
the community, that this man was a convert. The Christian 
people looked on him with pity, and were silent ; they had no 
hope of him. But from that hour to this — and many years 
have now passed away — he has never faltered in his course, 
never yielded so much as an inch to his vicious habits. His 
constancy and consistency are even as much superior to that of 
other disciples, as his simplicity is greater than theirs. He is 
always in his place. He has worn out two or three Bibles, for 
he had before learned to read a little, and now put himself to 



IN MANY CASES THERE ARE NO PRECONCEPTIONS. 307 

the task in earnest. He gets a few dollars of earnings, which 
he does not want, and goes to his pastor, requesting him to 
apply it to some good use, which he does not know how to 
select. When asked by his friends — for that is the general 
wonder — how it is that his old habits of profanity and drunken- 
ness have never once gotten advantage of him, his uniform reply 
is, " Why, I have seen Jesus !" The critic of naturalism can- 
not, of course, admit any such mystic notion as that — Jesus 
was a man, and, if He is anything now, He is still a man. 
Will he account for such a character, initiated by a sudden 
change, by supposing a preconception that shapes it, and main- 
tains it against infirmities so great, for such a course of years ? 
There is a much deeper and more adequate philosophy in the 
subject himself. Take his own account of it, and the fact is 
possible ; take this other, and it is not. 

There are multitudes of cases also, in every age, where 
heathens who have never heard of Christ, or of any terms of 
salvation at all, and sometimes even the rudest of heathens, 
are passed into a manifestly new character, by a change corre- 
spondent, in every respect, with what is called conversion under 
the gospel. And if God, as we maintain, is reigning super- 
naturally over the world and in it, to establish and complete 
the kingdom of His Son, what shall we look for but to find 
sporadic cases of conversion, or spiritual illumination, even 
among the heathen peoples, before the knowledge of Christ is 
received ? 

Socrates is best conceived in this manner, and according to 
his own impressions, he was guided supernaturally, by a secret 
grace and ministry, in whose teaching he received all that most 
distinguished his personal history. Clement of Eome, as we 
have already observed, was a man mysteriously led, as by some 
divine impulse, and appears to have come into the spirit of a 
new-born life, before he had even heard of Christ. In Him, 
therefore, his heart instantly rested, finding there the grace that 
he wanted, and the divine beauty that he already longed for. 

And what forbids that we include in the reckoning examples 
of a class more wild, where it is impossible to suspect any dis- 
temper of the experience, under preconceptions imposed, either 
by philosophy or by the gospel — such, for example, as the 
strange devotee discovered by Brainard, among the children of 
the forest, and called by him " the conjurer." " He said," so 



308 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 

Brainard represents, " that God had taught him his religion, 
and he wanted to find others who would join heartily with him 
in it. He believed God had some good people somewhere, who 
felt as he did. He had not always felt as now, but had for- 
merly been like the rest of the Indians till about four years 
before that time. Then his heart, he said, was much distressed, 
so that he could not live among the Indians, but got away 
into the woods and lived alone there for months. At length, 
he said, God comforted his heart, and showed him what he 
should do, and since that time he had known God, and tried to 
serve Him, and loved all men, be they who they would, so as 
he never did before." 

Brainard was also told by the Indians, "that he opposed 
their drinking strong liquor with all his power, and that if, at 
any time, he could not dissuade them from it, he would leave 
them, and go crying into the woods. He was looked upon and 
derided, among most of the Indians, as a precise zealot, who 
made a needless noise about religious matters. There was 
something in his temper and disposition which looked more 
like true religion, than any I have ever observed among other 
heathens." 1 

In the same manner, a forlorn woman, discovered by one of 
our missionaries, in the depths of Central Africa, is reported 
by him to have broken out, in the most affecting demonstrations 
of joy, when Christ was presented to her mind, saying, "0, 
that is He who has come to me so often in my prayers. I 
could not find who He was ! " And if God holds any terms of 
society and reciprocal feeling with our race, what should we 
more naturally expect, than that He will always be revealed, 
in this manner, to such as earnestly seek the right, and give 
play to their inborn though distracted affinities, longing and 
searching, if haply they may find Him ? But if God is revealed 
thus tenderly, even to minds in the darkness of heathenism, it 
is plain as it can be, that the great, internal changes of 
character we are discussing, are not to be accounted for by the 
preconceptions that are taken up and become operative in the 
subjects. 

After all, this question is more naturally and satisfactorily 
handled, in the more ordinary form; viz., as a question of 
Christian experience ; what it is, whether it supposes, neces- 

1 Memoir, pp. 171, 175 



IS GOVERNMENT IN SOULS. 309 

sarily, a supernatural power, and what is the real significance 
of the testimony given by so many witnesses for Christ ? For 
the work of the Spirit, which is the Christian conception, is 
but another name, as already intimated, for that supernatural 
providence or government of the world in souls, which, we are 
endeavouring to show, is dispensed in the interest of Chris- 
tianity. 

Thus we have vast crowds of witnesses, rising up in every 
age, who testify, out of their own consciousness, to the work of 
the Spirit, and the new-creating power of Jesus, who, by the 
Spirit, is revealed in their hearts. In nothing do they consent 
with a more hymn-like harmony than in the testimony that 
their inward transformation is a divine work — a new revelation 
of God, by the Spirit, in their human consciousness. They are 
such men too as the world are most wont to believe on all 
other subjects. Neither has any one a particle of evidence to 
set against their testimony. All which the stiffest unbeliever 
can allege against them is, that he himself has no such con- 
sciousness, or has found no such discovery verified to his parti- 
cular experience. They testify, on their part, with one voice, 
to a truth positive, and the whole opposing world can offer 
nothing, on its part, against their testimony, but the simple 
negative fact of having in themselves no such experience. 

Meantime, their very word itself conveys a look of verisimi- 
litude, and makes a show of God, so necessary to us, and so 
honourable to Him, that it challenges the spontaneous faith of 
every ingenuous and thoughtful soul. We never hear any single 
man of them speak of his better life as a development, or a 
something merely unfolded in him, by natural laws. No 
preacher preaches, no martyr goes to the fires in that vein. 
But they all talk of their faith, and of what God gives to their 
faith ; the conscious impotence of all their struggles with them- 
selves, and the easy victory they find in God ; how they are 
borne up as on eagle's wings, their wonderful light, their peace, 
the love they could not have to their enemies, but now, by 
Christ revealed within, are able to exercise, unstinted and free. 
Consciously they are not living in the plane of nature, they do 
and suffer things which nature can as little do, as she can raise 
the dead. They conquer their fears, God helping their faith. 
Pride, passion, habit, they subdue in the same manner. Ee- 
ligious prejudices also, animosities of race, the contempt of 



310 THIS IS THE WITNESS 

learning, and the bigotry of schools melt away in them, leaving 
a character that is visibly a new creation. Even the sceptic 
who has come to such a state of intellectual disease, that he 
can no longer find how to believe anything, is filled and flooded 
with the light of God, in Christ and the Spirit, as soon as he 
can heartily ask it, with a will to be taught. And so we have 
a vast cloud of witnesses, testifying in all ages, to the reality of 
a supernatural grace, which is the root and power of all their 
works, and the hidden spring of their unspeakable joys. They 
know it to be so ; for they consciously get their impulse wholly 
from without any terms of power in themselves, or of causality 
in nature. They could as easily believe that they make the 
rain in their own cisterns, as that their holy experiences' are 
not from God Himself. So do they all testify with one voice — 
Paul, Clement, Origen y St Bernard, Huss, Gerson, Luther, 
Fenelon, Baxter, Flavel, Doddridge, Wesley, Edwards, Brainard, 
Taylor, all the innumerable host of believers that have entered 
into rest, whether it be the persecuted saint of the first age, 
driven home in his chariot of blood, or the saint who died but 
yesterday in the arms of his family. They live in the common 
consciousness of a power supernatural, saying, " Yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me." Nothing, in short, would violate, or in 
real truth obliterate, so much of the Christian history, as to 
qualify it down to the mere terms of natural development. In- 
deed it would be the virtual expurgation from it of all the saints 
of God, whatever they have done, or been, or said. 

Holding the subject in this form, our critics of the naturalistic 
school commonly turn their account of the matter in some 
such way as this. They say to Paul, Luther, Knox, Edwards, 
and, in fact, the whole Church of God: "We do you full 
credit, as being made just as much better men as you say you 
are, and as being exercised subjectively, in just the way you 
think you are. You are only mistaken, as we have now dis- 
covered, in respect to the manner and grounds of your ex- 
perience. You have prayed and thought you were heard, you 
have believed and thought your success was a gift of faith, 
you have been strengthened against fears and pains of death — 
all you that have been martyrs — others have been strengthened 
in their times of temptation, and you all think it was God 
who bore you up by the immediate gift of Himself; but we 
are able now to tell you that you were, so far, mistaken. 



OF THEIR CONSCIOUSNESS. 311 

There is a law of nature by which all these things come to 
pass, and it is so fixed that nature will help you always, or 
even inspire you, just according to what you do. All this 
which you think comes from God by a regenerative dispensa- 
tion, is the development of nature by a generative." 

There would seem to be a rather remarkable defect of 
modesty in this assumption, of which it cannot be supposed 
that its authors are themselves aware. It not only shows the 
whole Church of God, that their conceptions of Christian 
experience are mistaken, but it corrects them in precisely that 
which they testify, in the philosophic method itself. This, 
they say, we find by experiment. It is not our speculation, 
it is not any theoretic interpretation put on our experience, 
but it is our experience itself. When they say that God 
consciously strengthens them in their day of trial, gives them 
what to say, hears their prayers, keeps them in peace by the 
testimony that they please Him, fills them day and night with 
His fulness, and our modern critic runs to them to mend their 
phraseology, and shows them how to come at the same things 
in a more rational way, even by letting the divinity that is in 
them already have a free development according to natural 
laws, it would not be strange if they should answer with a 
sigh, "Ah! dear child, we cannot get on thus; for all that 
bread on which we feed is manna that we gather, and not a 
loaf that is hid in our nature. Turn us down thus upon 
nature for a gospel, and our wings are cut. All that we know 
of God and divine things, we know by stretching upward and 
away from nature, and believing in God as in Christ revealed. 
Every success we get, every joy we reach, comes of rejecting 
just that method by which thou proposest to regulate our 
experience. May it not be that what thou hast discovered by 
reason has kept thee from faith, and that still thou needest 
some one to teach thee what be the first principles of the 
doctrine of Christ ?" 

What we find, then, as the result of our inquiry is, that the 
government of the world shows the same hand which appears 
in the character and work of Jesus. In the first place, we 
discover that nothing takes place in the world that ought to 
take place, and even must take place, if the government and 
supreme law of things were confined to mere nature and her 
processes. Next, we find that the issues of wars and dis- 



312 THIS IS THE WITNESS OF THEIR CONSCIOUSNESS. 

coveries, the migrations, diplomacies, and great historic eras 
of races and nations, the extinctions and revivals of learning, 
and the persecutions and corruptions, not less than the refor- 
mations of churches, are all so modulated by the superintend- 
ing government of the world, as to perpetuate the gospel of 
Christ, and, as far as we can see, to insure its ultimate 
triumph. Then passing into the interior history of souls, 
which, after all, is the chief field of God's government in the 
earth, we meet vast myriads of witnesses in all the walks of 
life, and in all the past ages, who profess to know God in the 
witness of their eternal life and show, by tokens manifold and 
clear, that they are raised above themselves in all that makes 
the character of their life. To sum up all in one brief 
expression, we have found a New Testament in the government 
of the world. It penetrates all depths of matter, heaves in 
the roll of the sea, administers back of the thrones, tempers 
the courses of history, restraining remainders and excesses of 
wrath, overturning, conserving, restoring, healing, and reaffirm- 
ing thus, in all the grand affairs of human life, without and 
within, just what Christ the Word declares, when ascending to 
reign — All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 
What, in fact, do we see with our eyes, but that the scheme 
of the four Gospels is the scheme of universal government 
itself? 



MIRACLES AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 313 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MIEACLES AND SPIEITUAL GIFTS NOT DISCONTINUED. 

If the world is managed supernaturally, or as being in the 
interest of Christianity, which is the doctrine maintained in 
the last chapter, a subordinate and vastly inferior, though to 
many, much more pressing question, remains to be settled ; 
viz., what has become of the miracles and supernatural gifts 
of the gospel era ? These were associated historically with the 
planting of Christianity. By such tokens Christ authenticated 
His mission, giving the like signs to His apostles, to be the 
authentication of theirs. What, then, it is peremptorily re- 
quired of us to answer, has become of these miracles, these 
tongues, gifts of healing, prophecies ? what, also, of the dreams, 
presentiments, visits of angels ? what of judgments falling 
visibly on the head of daring and sacrilegious crimes ? what of 
possessions, magic, sorcery, necromancy ? If these once were 
facts, why should they not be now ? If they are incredible 
now, when were they less so ? Does a fact become rational 
and possible by being carried back into other centuries of time ? 
Is it given us to see that Christianity throws itself out boldly 
on its facts, in these matters, or does it come in the shy and 
cautious manner some appear to suppose, asserting a few 
miracles and half-mythologic marvels that occurred in the 
romantic ages of history, where no investigation can reach 
them ; adding, to escape all demand of such now in terms of 
present evidence, that they are discontinued, because the canon 
is closed, and there is no longer any use for them ? 

Such a disposal of the question, it must be seen, wears a 
suspicious look. If miracles are inherently incredible, which is 



314 THE CANON IS CLOSED, BUT IT DOES 

the impression at the root of our modern unbelief, evidently 
nothing is gained by thrusting them back into remote ages of 
time. If, on the other hand, they are inherently credible, why 
treat them as if they were not ? raising ingenious and forced 
hypotheses to account for their non-occurrence ? Christianity, 
it is true, is in some sense a complete organization, a work 
done that wants nothing added to finish it ; but it does not 
follow that the canon of Scripture is closed — that is a naked 
and violent assumption, supported by no word of Scripture, and 
justified by no inference from the complete organization of the 
Gospel. For still, even according to Christ's own thought, it 
was a complete mustard seed only ; which, though it is com- 
plete as a seed, so that no additions can be made to it, has yet, 
nevertheless, much to do in the way of growth, and no one can 
be sure that other books of Scripture may not some time be 
necessary for that. We do not even know that a new dis- 
pensation, or many such, may not be required to unfold this 
seed, and make it the full grown tree. It may not be so. I 
have no present suspicion that any such new contributions, or 
varieties of ministration are needed. But it is better not to 
assume that of which we have and can have no possible evi- 
dence ; least of all are we called to do it, when the assumption 
itself is evidently made for a purpose, and wears a look of sus- 
picion that weakens the respect of really important truthg. 

As little does it follow that, if the canon of Scripture is closed 
up, there is no longer any use or place for miracles and spiritual 
gifts. That is a conclusion taken by a mere act of judgment, 
when plainly no judgment of man is able to penetrate the 
secrets and grasp the economic reasons of God's empire, with 
sufficient insight to affirm anything on a subject so deep and 
difficult. There may certainly be reasons for such miracles and 
gifts of the Spirit, apart from any authentication of new books 
of Scripture. Indeed, they might possibly be wanted even the 
more, to break up the monotony likely to follow, when reve- 
lations have ceased and the word of Scripture is for ever closed 
up ; wanted also possibly to lift the Church out of the abysses 
of a mere second-hand religion, keeping it alive and open to the 
realities of God's immediate visitation. 

And yet, for these and such like reasons, it is very commonly 
assumed, and has been since the days of Chrysostom, that 
miracles and all similar externalities of divine power have been 



NOT FOLLOW THAT THE GIFTS ARE DISCONTINUED. 315 

discontinued. It is not observed that the date itself is contra- 
dicted by the reasons ; for no book of Scripture had then been 
written for at least two hundred and fifty years ; though the 
miracles had never come, as a matter of fact, to any supposed 
vanishing point till that time. But that miracles continued 
for two hundred and fifty years, after there was no reason for 
them, is no great obstruction to a theory of the fact and the 
reasons, after it has once gained acceptance. Hence there is 
almost nothing, known to be derived from the Scripture itself, 
which is affirmed more positively, or with a more settled air of 
authority, than this discontinuance of miracles and spiritual gifts. 
Possibly some may even take it as a heresy and a great scandal 
to the cause of truth, to suggest a possibility of mistake in the 
assumption. Nay, there are probably many Christian teachers 
who would even think it a disorder in God's realm itself, if now, 
in these modern times, these days of science, the well-graduated 
uniformity of things were to be disturbed by an irruption of 
miraculous demonstrations. It would upset many whole chap- 
ters of theory. 

At the same time, there are classes of teachers and disciples, 
now and then, who spring up raising the question whether 
miracles are not restored, or some time to be restored ? Even 
Archbishop Tillotson was of opinion that they probably enough 
might be, in the case of an attempt to publish the Gospel 
among heathen nations. 1 But in all these cases, the point is 
virtually conceded that miracles have been discontinued ; 
whereas the truer and more rational question is, whether they 
have not always remained as in the apostolic age ? Of course 
there have been cessations, here and there, just as there have 
been cessations of faith and decays of holy living ; just as there 
are cessations of spiritual influence for the same reason ; 
though no one supposes, on that account, that the work of the 
Holy Spirit has been discontinued, and requires to be reinsti- 
tuted in order to be an existing fact. There is no likelihood 
that a miraculous dispensation would be restored after being 
quite passed by and lost. But there may be casual suspensions 
and reappearances, sometimes in one place and sometimes in 
another, that are quite consistent with the conviction that the 
dispensation is perpetual, never withdrawn, and never to be 
withdrawn. 

1 Works, vol. x. p. 230. 



316 THESE MERE PRODIGIES 

And this, on very deliberate and careful search, appears to 
he the true opinion. We are able too, it will be seen, to verify 
this opinion by abundant facts. Of course it is not implied, 
if we assert the continuance of these supernatural demonstra- 
tions in all ages, that they will, in our time, be mere repetitions, 
or formal continuations, of those which distinguished the apos- 
tolic age ; it must be enough that such works appear in forms 
adapted to our particular time and stage of advancement. 
Many persons demand that Christianity shall do precisely the 
same things which it did, or claims to have done, in the first 
times ; not observing that the doing of a given thing is com- 
monly a good reason why it should not be done again, and that 
the great law of adaptation, which is a first law of reason, will 
always require that there should be a change of administration, 
correspondent with our changes of stage or condition. No one 
ever charges it as a defect of evidence for the supernatural gift 
of the decalogue, that God has not continued, since that day, to 
give decalogues from every hill. On the contrary, when Christ 
appears, taking away, in some sense, the first covenant, that 
he may establish the second, we recognize a degree of evidence 
for both in the fact itself that there is a show of progress in the 
transition. This progress of manner and kind we want in 
things supernatural, as well as in things natural ; else, if God 
were for ever to repeat his old works in their old forms, we 
should have a dull time of existence. What, then, if it should 
appear that our prophesyings, interpretations, healings, and other 
such gifts, have so far disguised their form as to be sometimes 
recognized only with difficulty ? Instead of discovering an ob- 
jection to Christianity in the fact, what have we in it, possibly, 
but a confirmation of its rational evidence ? And yet it is 
chiefly remarkable, that the forms of the gifts are continued 
with so little apparent variation. 

It is very obvious, or ought to be, beforehand, that these 
prodigies are not Christianity ; the substance is not in them ; 
they are only signs and tokens of the substance. Their propa- 
gation, therefore, is no principal interest of Christianity, and 
the living power of Christianity is never to be tested by their 
frequency, or the impressiveness of their operations. There 
may evidently be too many of them, as well as too few. As 
soon as they begin to be taken for things principal, or for the 
real substance, they become idols and hindrances to faith. 



ARE NOT CHRISTIANITY. 317 

When the world that ought to be repenting is taken up with 
staring, the sobriety of faith is lost in the gospel of credulity. 
And then, instead of a solid, ever-during reign of Providence, 
that is governing the world in the interest of Christianity, we 
should have a glittering firework around us, that really governs 
nothing, has no power to regenerate souls, or strengthen the 
kingdom of Christ in the earth. Indeed, we actually see this 
folly beginning, in a very short time, to get possession of men's 
minds, and find the apostles, on that account, contending most 
deliberately against it. x It was a great evil that so many were 
more ready to figure in the gifts, or go after and admire the 
gifts, than to live by faith, and walk with Christ, and bear 
fruits meet for repentance. 

It is our impression, to speak frankly, that the party of dis- 
continuance, and the party of restoration, and the party also of 
denial, who make so much of the fact that these prodigies are 
gone by, and are even conceded to be now incredible, do all 
concur in a partial misconception of their place in God's eco- 
nomy, and of their relative importance to it. To distinguish 
truly their office, we need to consider the two opposite extremes 
of character to which they are related. We are never to look 
at God's means, as being perfect or not in themselves ; they 
are good only as medicine for a fevered and disordered nature 
in man, requiring also to be increased or withdrawn, according 
to the oscillations of that imperfect and disjointed nature, as it 
swings to this or that opposite of excess. 

To see how these gifts operate, or what place they fill, let us 
suppose it to be an accepted fact that God is reigning in a 
grand supernatural scheme of order, and governing the world, 
externally and in souls, for Christianity's sake ; let it be under- 
stood and asserted that, even in things supernatural, God rules 
by eternal and fixed laws ; and it will not be long before the 
sottish habit of remaining sin will begin to settle even Christian 
souls into a stupor of intellectual fatality. Does not everything 
continue as it was from the beginning ? Prayer becomes a 
kind of dumb-bell exercise, good as exercise, but never to be 
answered. The word is good to be exegetically handled, but 
there is no light of interpretation in souls, more immediate ; 
all truth is to be second-hand truth, never a vital beam of God's 
own light. To subside into sacraments, that are only priestly 

1 Cor. xii.-xv. 



318 USES AND LAWS OF SUCH GIFTS. 

manipulations, is now easy. The drill of repetitions it is more 
readily hoped will wear into the rock, than that grace will dis- 
solve it. A church-worship is easily taken for piety. Or, if 
there be no external change of the modes of religion, it is itself 
lowered and disempowered, as much as if a lower and more 
earthly form were chosen. All the possibilities are narrowed 
and shrunk away. Expectation is gone — God is too far off, 
too much imprisoned by laws, to allow expectation from Him. 
The Christian world has been gravitating, visibly, more and 
more, toward this vanishing point of faith, for whole centuries, 
and especially since the modem era of science began to shape 
the thoughts of men by only scientific methods. Keligion has 
fallen into the domain of the mere understanding, and so it has 
become a kind of wisdom not to believe much, therefore to 
expect as little. 

Now it is this descent to mere rationality that makes an 
occasion for the signs and wonders of the Spirit. The unbe- 
lieving and false spirit in half- sanctified minds, converts order 
into immobility, laws into lethargy, and the piety that ought to 
be strong because God is great, grows turbid and weak under 
His greatness. Let Him now break forth in miracle and holy 
gifts, let it be seen that He is still the living God, in the midst 
of His dead people, and they will be quickened to a resurrec- 
tion by the sight. Now they see that God can do something 
still, and has His liberty. He can hear prayers, He can help 
them triumph in dark hours, their bosom- sins He can help them 
master, all His promises in the Scripture He can fulfil, and 
they go to Him with great expectations. They see, in these 
gifts, that the Scripture stands, that the graces, and works, and 
holy fruits of the apostolic age, are also for them. It is as if 
they had now a proof experimental of the resources embodied 
in the Christian plan. The living God, immediately revealed, 
and not historically only, begets a feeling of present life and 
power, and religion is no more a tradition, a second-hand light, 
but a grace of God unto salvation, operative now. 

But it will shortly begin to be decerned, now that the sin- 
spirit is weak on the opposite side, and runs to the opposite 
excess. Before, it went back to the understanding, to nature, 
and to general unbelief. Now it rushes on to fanaticism, and 
has even a pride in believing things really incredible. It does 
not follow, because one heals the sick, or speaks with tongues, 



USES AND LAWS OF THE GIFTS. 319 

that he is therefore clear of his moral infirmities as a fallen 
man. He is taken with the stare of multitudes, gives way to a 
subtle ambition, magnifies overmuch his particular gift, runs 
into shows of conceit, grows impatient of contradiction, and 
loosens the rage of passion — by that, driving himself into even 
wild excesses both of opinion and practice — and finally coming 
to a full end, as one burnt up in the fierceness of his own heat. 
As before, without the miracles and the gifts, religion went 
down to extinction, under the wear of mere routine, so now the 
miracles and the gifts have issued in a wild Corinthianism, 
which whole chapters of apostolic lecture can hardly reduce to 
sobriety. And the result is, that now all the supernatural de- 
monstrations are brought into disrespect, and a process begins 
of oscillation backward, to the ordinary and regular; then 
toward rationalism again, unbelief, and spiritual impotence. 

Now, between these two kinds of excess, the Church is 
always swinging, and by a kind of moral necessity must be. It 
is not that God's administration is irregular and desultory, 
but that such is the unsteadiness and unreliableness of our poor 
disjointed humanity. The oscillation back toward order and 
reason is commonly longer and more gradual; that toward 
miracles and gifts shorter and sharper, because there is more 
heat and celerity in it, and less time is requisite to bring it to 
its limit. 

It need hardly be observed that every outbreak of supposed 
miracle and supernatural demonstration has run its career in 
just this manner. It has begun with a most fervent seeking 
unto God, and a remarkable singleness of devotion to Christ. 
The mighty works appeared as revelations of divine power, 
scarcely expected by the subjects themselves, and there was no 
excess, except as the ideas and maxims of a non-expectant piety 
in the Church were scandalized by such displays of God. But 
there was no sufficient balance in the moral infirmities of a 
state of sin to keep down the passions, and hold in check the 
wildness of conceit, and the consequence was, that the subjects, 
unable to distinguish what was from God, and what from them- 
selves, took their thoughts for oracles, and their fancies for 
visions, and very shortly ran the true work of God in them, 
into the ground. So it has been hitherto, and so it probably 
will be, till some age or state is reached, where men are suffi- 
ciently modulated and sobered by truth, to have the heavenly 



320 USES AND LAWS OF THE GIFTS. 

gifts in terms of heavenly order, and be fired with all highest 
mountings of love, without setting on fire also the course of 
nature, in their corrupted hearts and bodies. Then the oscilla- 
tions of which we have spoken will cease, the ordinary and 
regular life will be raised up to meet the extraordinary, and 
become a state of immediate divine knowledge and experience. 
Then the extraordinary, the miracles and gifts, will lose out 
their explosive violence, and become the steady, calculable 
quantities of a really godly life. That is the true kingdom of 
God, fulfilled in its idea — His tabernacle pitched with men. 
Life is now an open state of first-hand experience, full of God, 
where the young men see visions, and the old men dream 
dreams, without becoming either visionary or dreamy in their 
excesses ; where feeling and reason coalesce, and the dear 
humility of love chastens all the flaming victories of faith and 
prayer. 

It has been a very common thing with Christian teachers, 
and even with the writers of deliberate history, to discredit all 
appearances of supernatural wonders, such as miracles and 
spiritual gifts, because they make so bad a figure in the end. 
Whereas the true, and only true test of them is their beginning. 
We may as well test the opposite oscillation in this manner, 
and because it ends in the state of unbelief and all impotence — 
a religion without life and sanctifying power — have it as our 
conclusion that the convictions of order and holy regularity, 
which it set up at the beginning, are a dismal and cold illusion, 
dishonoured by its fruits. It is, doubtless, true that, as men 
judge, the excesses of fanaticism are less respectable than the 
excesses of deadness and immobility. It is so, because the 
common vote of the world is on that side, making it always a 
most creditable thing to live in such deadness to God and all 
holy things, as answers no one of the intelligent uses of life. 
But whoever ponders thoughtfully the question, will find ample 
room to doubt, which is really widest of a just respect, the 
excesses of fanaticism and false fire, or the comatose and dull 
impotence of a religion that worships God without expectation. 

It may occur to some, to raise the question, why it is, that 
the lying wonders of necromancy, and magic, and demoniacal 
possessions are wont to be grouped contemporaneously with the 
true wonders of prophecy and divine gifts. The answer is 
readily supplied by the general solution of the subject here 



WHY LYING WONDERS ARE ATTENDANT. 321 

offered. The two kinds, probably, are not strictly contempo- 
raneous, and it is very likely that the bad wonders will precede 
the others ; even as they seem to do just at this particular 
crisis. For, after all the facts and functions of religion are 
reduced to a second-hand character — a reported history, a 
contrived and reasoned dogma, a drill of observances, where no 
fire burns, and no glimpses into eternity are opened by visions 
and revelations of the Lord, or where no God appears to be 
found, who is nigh enough to support expectation in His wor- 
shippers — then, at length, even the outer people of unbelief 
begin to ache in the sense of vacuity, and there, not unlikely, 
the pain is first felt. Their religious and supernatural instincts 
have been so long defrauded, that it would be a kind of satisfac- 
tion to get the silence broken, if only by some vision of a 
ghost — anything to show or set open the world unknown. 
They would even go hunting, with Clement, for some one to 
raise them a spirit. Hence the strange zeal observable in the 
new sorcery of our day. Why, it shows the other world as a 
living fact ! proves immortality ! does more than any gospel 
ever did to certify us of these things ! But the secret of this 
greedy, undistinguishing haste of delusion is the sharpness of 
the previous appetite ; and that was caused by the abstinence 
of long privation. We had so far come into the kingdom of 
nullities — calling it the kingdom of God — we had become so 
rational, and gotten even God's own liberty into such close 
terms of natural order, that the immediate, living realities of 
religion, or religious experience, were under a doom of suppres- 
sion. It was as if there were no atmosphere to breathe, and 
the minds most remote from the impressions and associations of 
piety naturally enough felt the hunger first. Which hunger, 
alas ! they are thinking to feed, by a superstitious trust, in 
the badly written, silly oracles of our new-discovered, scientific 
necromancy. But the Church also, or Christian discipleship, 
begins of course to ache with the same kind of pain, feeling 
after some way out of the dulness of a second-hand faith, and 
the dryness of a merely reasoned gospel, and many of the most 
longing, most expectant souls, are seen waiting for some livelier, 
more apostolic demonstrations. They are tired, beyond bearing, 
of the mere school forms and defined notions ; they want some 
kind of faith that shows God in living commerce with men, 
such as He vouchsafed them in the former times. And if we 



322 SPORADIC CASES, DOUBTLESS, 

can trust their report, they are not wholly disappointed. Pro- 
bably enough, therefore, there may just now be coming forth 
a more distinct and widely-attested dispensation of , gifts and 
miracles, than has been witnessed for centuries. If so, it will 
raise great expectations of the speedy and last triumph of holi- 
ness in the earth. But these expectations may be delayed. 
By and by the subjects of the gifts, or those who think to go 
beyond them, may begin to approach the bad extreme on this 
side. Ambition may stimulate pretence, and the false heat of 
passion. Then come wild excesses ; then a general collapse, 
in which the wonders cease. And perhaps only this may be 
gained ; that the sense of something more immediate than a 
religion of second causes has been burned into Christian souls, 
which it will take a century or two to exhaust. However, as 
the sense of laws becomes more pervasively fixed in human 
thought, it is allowed us to believe that, as the gifts are them- 
selves dispensed by fixed laws, the Church will gradually come 
to be in them in that manner, and hold them in the even way 
of intelligence. 

Holding this general view of miracles and supernatural gifts, 
it should not surprise us to find sporadic cases reported here and 
there, in this or that age of the world ; as little, to fall on 
periods in the Church history, where large bodies of disciples, 
driven out into exile, or persecuted and hunted in their own 
country, are brought so close to God, and opened so completely 
to His Spirit, as to become prophets and doers of mighty works. 
It may not be true in any age of the world, and probably is 
not, that such gifts are absolutely discontinued ; so that no 
supernatural wonder of any kind takes place. Such wonders 
will vary their form ; but in some form, scriptural or provi- 
dential, ancient or new, social or only personal, they could be 
distinguished probably by any one having a sufficient knowledge 
of facts. 

What is wanted, therefore, on this subject, in order to any 
sufficient impression, is a full, consecutive inventory of the su- 
pernatural events or phenomena of the world. There is reason 
to suspect that many would, in that case, be greatly surprised 
by the commonness of the instances. Could they be collected 
and chronicled, in their real multitude, what is now felt to be 
their strangeness would quite vanish away, and possibly they 
would even seem to recur, much as in the more ancient times 



IN ALL THE PAST AGES. 323 

of the world. But no such revision of history is possible. 
The material is accessible only in the most partial manner, and, 
if it were all at hand, could not be managed, or even be summed 
up, in such a recapitulation as our present limits will permit. 

The first thing arrived at, by any one who prosecutes this 
kind of inquiry, apart from all prepossessions and saws of tra- 
dition, will certainly be, that the clumsy assumption commonly 
held, of a cessation of the original apostolic gifts, at about 
some given date, is for ever exploded ; for, as in fact they never 
consented to be stayed or concluded by any given time, so in 
history they persist in running by all time, till finally the inves- 
tigator, unable to set down any date after which they were not, 
comes into the discovery that the stream is a river, flowing con- 
tinuously through all ages, and always to flow. He could not 
give us the wonders of Ignatius, Poly carp, Justin Martyr, 
Athenagoras, Irenseus, Tertullian, Origen, and there declare the 
point of cessation to be reached. He would not come down to 
Cyprian or Augustine, and settle it there, or down to Paul the 
Hermit, and settle it there. The dreams of Huss, the prophe- 
syings of Luther, and Fox, and Archbishop Usher, the ecstasies 
of Xavier, with innumerable other wonders, and visitations of 
God, in the saints of the Church, during all the intervening ages, 
bridge the gulf between us and the ancient times, and bring us 
to a question of miracles and gifts, as a question of our own 
day and time. Such demonstrations became more nearly frivo- 
lous, when everything was frivolous, and more visibly infected 
with superstition when the Church itself fell under the shadow 
of this baleful power ; but, though the evidences of supernatural 
facts were correspondently diminished, there was never any suf- 
ficient reason for the conclusion that they were quite gone by 
and finally discontinued. 

It has been a subject of wonder that Mr Newman, with all 
his remarkable powers as a writer and a man of genius, should 
venture on the deliberate attempt to vindicate the authenticity 
of the Church miracles. And, probably enough, it is a fair sub- 
ject of wonder, considering that his purpose required him to 
vindicate as well those which are trivial and ridiculous as those 
which wear the dignity of truth and reason. His argument 
must, of course, break down under such a load of absurdities ; 
but it does not follow that a more discriminative argument, 
unencumbered by Church restrictions, would not fare differently. 



324 SUCH GIFTS APPEAR IN ALL AGES. 

Descending now to the times we call modern, the times, for 
example, subsequent to the Reformation, nothing is easier, 
exactly contrary to the very common impression, than to show 
that the same kind of prodigies are current here, in the last 
three, as in the first three centuries of the Church. Whoever 
has read that Christian classic, The Scots Worthies, has followed 
a stream of prophecies, and healings, and visible judgments, and 
specific answers to prayer, and discernments of spirits, corre- 
sponding, at all points, with the gifts and wonders of the apos- 
tolic age. And the men that figure in these gifts and powers, 
are the great names of the heroic age of religion in their coun- 
try — Wishart, Knox, Erskine., Craig, Davidson, Simpson, Welch, 
Guthrie, Blair, Welwood, Cameron, Cargill, and Peden. And 
it is a curious fact, in regard to .this great subject, that, while 
we believe so little and deny so much, and hold so many oppo- 
site assumptions, this same book of Howie, that chronicles in 
beautiful simplicity more gifts and wonders than all of living's, 
is published by one of the largest and most conservative bodies 
of Christians in our country, and is read by thousands, young 
and old, with eager delight. Is it that we like miracles and 
supernatural wonders, so far off that we need not, or that we 
can, believe them ? 

At a later period, on the repeal of the edict of Nantz, and in 
the persecutions that followed, a large body of the Protestant 
or Reformed disciples, called Huguenots, hunted by their pur- 
suers, fled to the mountains of Cevennes. Some of them also 
escaped to England and other Protestant countries. Among 
these unhappy people the miraculous gifts were developed, and 
by them were more or less widely disseminated abroad. They 
had tongues and interpretations of tongues. They had healings 
and the discerning of spirits. They prophesied in the Spirit. 
Intelligent persons went out from Paris, to hear, observe, and 
make inquiry, and these people were much discussed as " Les 
Trembleurs des Cevennes." In England they were also dis- 
cussed as the " French Prophets," and the fire they kindled in 
England caught among some of the English disciples, and burned 
for many years. 1 

About forty years after this appearing of the gifts among the 
Huguenots, a very similar development appeared among the 
Catholic or Jansenist population of Paris. Cures began to be 

1 Morning Watch, vol. iv. p. 383. 



APPEAR SUBSEQUENTLY TO THE REFORMATION. 325 

wrought at the tomb of St Medard, and particularly of persons 
afflicted with convulsions. And as the Jansenists were, at this 
time, under persecution at the hands of the Jesuits, and bearing 
witness, as they believed, for the truth of Christ, it is not won- 
derful that they began to be exercised, much as the Huguenots 
of the Cevennes had been. They had the gift of tongues, the 
discerning of spirits, and the gift of prophesying. These were 
called " Convulsionnaires de Saint Medard," because of the 
ecstatic state into which they seemed to be raised. 1 

The sect of Friends, from George Fox downward, have had it 
as a principle to expect gifts, revelations, discernings of spirits, 
and indeed a complete divine movement- Thus Fox, over and 
above his many revelations, wrought, as multitudes believed, 
works of healing in the sick. Take the following references 
from the Index of his " Journal," as affording, in the briefest 
form, a conception of the wonders he was supposed, and sup- 
posed himself to have wrought: — "Miracles wrought by the 
power of God — the lame made whole — the diseased restored — 
A distracted woman healed — A great man given over by physi- 
cians restored — Speaks to a sick man in Maryland, who was 
raised up by the Lord's power — Prays the Lord to rebuke J. C.'s 
infirmity, and the Lord by His power soon gave him ease." 

Led on thus by Fox, the Friends have always claimed the 
continuance of the original gifts of the Spirit in the apostolic 
age, and have looked for them, we may almost say, in the ordi- 
nary course' of their Christian demonstrations. We are not 
surprised, therefore, to find such a man of policy and incompar- 
able shrewdness as Isaac T. Hooper, believing as firmly in the 
prophetic gifts of his friend, Arthur Howell, as in those of 
Isaiah or Paul. This Howell was a preacher and leather- 
currier in Philadelphia, a man of perfect integrity in all the 
business of his life, and also a most gentle and benignant soul, 
in all his intercourse and society with men. One Sunday 
morning, on his way to Germantown, he met a funeral proces- 
sion, when, knowing nothing of the deceased, " it was suddenly 
revealed to him," so says the history, " that the occupant of the 
coffin before him was a woman, whose life had been saddened 
by the suspicion of a crime which she never committed. The 
impression became strong on his mind, that she wished him to 
make certain statements at her funeral. When the customary 

1 Morning Watch, vol. iv. p. 385. 



326 THESE GIFTS APPEAR IN OUR OWN TIME. 

services were finished, Arthur Howell rose and asked permis- 
sion to speak. " I did not know the deceased even by name," 
said he, " but it is given me to say that she suffered much, and 
unjustly. Her neighbours generally suspected her of a crime 
that she did not commit ; and, in a few weeks from this time, 
it will be clearly made manifest that she was innocent. A few 
hours before her death, she^ talked on this ■ subject with the 
clergyman who attended upon her, and who is now present ; 
and it is now given me to declare the communication she made 
to him on that occasion." 

He then proceeded to relate the particulars of the interview ; 
to which the clergyman listened with evident astonishment. 
When the communication was finished, he said, " I do not know 
who this man is, or how he has obtained information on this sub- 
ject ; but certain it is, that he has repeated, word for word, a 
conversation which I supposed was known only to myself and 
the deceased." 1 The explanation came, it is added, in exact 
accordance with Howell's promise. 

We are brought down, thus, to our own age and time — is it 
credible that the apostolic gifts and all the original wonders of 
the Church are extant, or in real bestowment, even now ? My 
argument does not imperatively require it of me to go this 
length, and say that they are. It is only a little better sus- 
tained on the supposition that they are. I am well aware, at 
the same time, that a sober recapitulation of what appear to be 
the facts of the question, will appear to many to be even a 
kind of weakness. Enough that, consciously to myself, it re- 
quires a much stronger balanee of equilibrium, and a much 
firmer intellectual justice, saying nothing of the necessary 
courage, to report these facts, without any protestations of 
dissent or discredit, than it would to toss them by, with 
derision, in compliance with the mere conventional notions, and 
current judgments of the times. I shall therefore dare to re- 
port as true, facts which neither I nor anybody else has even 
so much as a tolerable show of reason for denying or treating 
with lightness. 

How many cases of definite answers to prayers, such as are 
reported in the cases of Stilling, Franke, and others, are brought 
to our knowledge every week in the year. Cases of definite 
premonition are reported so familiarly and circumstantially, as 

l Life of Isaac T. Hooper, pp. 258-260. 



THESE GIFTS APPEAR IN OUR OWN TIME. 327 

to make a considerable item in the newspaper literature of our 
time. Prophecies of good men, or sometimes of poets and 
other literary men, are so often and particularly fulfilled, as to 
be the common wonder of the merely curious, who profess no 
faith in their verity, as communications from God. Dreams 
are reported, how often, foreshadowing facts, in a manner so 
peculiar, as to forbid any supposition of accident under condi- 
tions of chance. The state of trance is exemplified in Flavel 
and Tennent, and indeed hundreds of others, as remarkably as 
in Paul in his vision of the third heaven. Cases are reported 
in every community, where the defiant wrath of blasphemy has 
been suddenly struck down, as by some bolt of invisible judg- 
ment ; others, where a slowly coming retribution has so exactly 
retaliated the shape of a sin, as to raise the impression, that 
nothing but some directing will of God can account for the 
correspondence. A great sensation was made in the Christian 
world, only a few years ago, by the recurrence of tongues, heal- 
ings, prophecies, and other gifts, both in London, as connected 
with the preaching of Mr Irving, and at Port-Glasgow in Scot- 
land, in the more humble but not less respectable demonstra- 
tions of the two MacDonalds. The question has been very 
summarily disposed of, and the conclusion has been generally 
taken, that these reported cases of spiritual gifts were un- 
worthy of credit — mere hallucinations of the parties concerned. 
On a deliberate revision of the question, I am induced to admit, 
and, since I have it, to express a very different impression. 
These MacDonalds, for example, are men of unimpeachable 
character, one of them, as will be seen, from the cogent articles 
he wrote, remonstrating against the new Churchism taken up at 
length by Mr Irving, a man of great calmness, and remarkably 
well poised in the balance of his understanding. And yet this 
man is not only gifted with a power of healing the sick, but he 
is overtaken unexpectedly with the strange gift of tongues; viz., 
an ecstatic utterance, in words and sounds, which neither he, 
nor any that hear him, understand. Now there is nothing in 
this apparent gibberish, that could anyhow become a tempta- 
tion to the enthusiast or the pretender. It seems, at first view, 
to be an exercise so wide of intelligence, as to create no impres- 
sion of respect. And for just that reason it has the stronger 
evidence when it occurs ; for, notwithstanding all that is said 
by the commentators about tongues imparted for the preaching 



328 OPINIONS OF THINKING MEN 

of the gospel, I have found no one of all the reported cases of 
tongues, in which the tongue was intelligible, either to the 
speaker or the hearers, except as it was made so by a supernatural 
interpretation — which accords exactly, also, with what is said of 
tongues in the New Testament. And yet, on second thought, 
they have all the greater dignity and propriety, for just the 
reason that they require another gift to make them intelligible. 
For this gift of tongues, representing the Divine Spirit as play- 
ing the vocal organs of a man, which are the delivering powers 
of intelligence in his organization, is designed to be a symbol 
to the world of the possibility and fact of a divine access to the 
soul, and a divine operation in it — a symbol more expressive, 
in fact, than any other could be. And then it is the more 
exactly appropriate in its adaptation, that it wants another gift 
in the hearer, exactly correspondent, to understand it or give 
the interpretation. For so it is with all revelations of the 
Spirit, they are not only uttered or penned by inspiration, but 
they want a light of the Spirit in the receiver, to really appre- 
hend their power. Not even the prophets understood their 
visions. Besides, there is, I know not what, sublimity in this 
gift of tongues, as related to the great mystery of language ; 
suggesting, possibly, that all our tongues are from the Eternal 
Word, in souls ; there being, in his intelligent nature as Word, 
millions doubtless of possible tongues, that are as real to him 
as the spoken tongues of the world. 

Tongues were also spoken every week in London, and there 
was much discussion there of the case, in particular, of Miss 
Fancourt as a case of healing. She was a cripple, reduced to a 
bed-ridden state, by a curve of the spine, and the painful dis- 
order of almost all the joints of her body. She had been lying 
for two years on a couch, padded and curved, to suit her dis- 
torted form. Her family belonged to the Established Church, 
and she was herself a deeply Christian person. A Christian 
friend, who had been greatly interested in her behalf, called one 
evening, when the subject of miraculous healing was discussed. 
The friend, Mr Graves, was a believer in such gifts, but Mr 
Fancourt, the father, a genuinely Christian person, was not. 
After a time he disappeared, and during his absence from the 
room, Mr Gr. arose, as Miss F. supposed, to take his leave. 
But instead of the " good-night " she expected, he commanded 
her to stand on her feet and walk. Forthwith she rose up, 



HAVE LITTLE AUTHORITY HERE. 329 

stood, walked, was clear of her pains, took on all the characters 
of a well person, and so continued. A great discussion was 
raised immediately in the public journals, and particularly 
between the Morning Watch and the Christian Observer ; in 
which the Observer took precisely the ground of Mr Hume, as 
respects the credibility of miracles performed now ; insisting 
that henceforth, since the Scripture time, "we must admit any 
solution rather than a miracle." Little wonder is it that we 
have difficulty in sustaining the historic facts of Christianity, 
when the most Christian, most evangelic teachers, assume so 
readily the utter incredibility of any such gifts and wonders as 
the gospels report, and as they themselves have it for a righte- 
ousness to believe. 

But the doubt will be thrust upon us here, at the outset, as 
we come down to our own times — and it might as well be dis- 
cussed here, before we proceed to other cases in hand — whether 
such things are really credible now, or entitled to even so much 
as the respectful consideration of thinking men. And I make 
no question that the class called thinking men in our age will 
be ready, with few exceptions, to reject, in the gross, and with- 
out hesitation, all such pretended facts. They are the illusions, 
it will be said, of ignorant minds, weakened by superstition, 
heated by religious enthusiasm ; stories that are published, it 
may be, with honest intentions, but which any philosopher will 
dismiss without a moment's consideration. 

But whoever is ready, in this manner, I reply, to erect the 
thinking men of an age into a tribunal of authoritative judg- 
ment on such questions, has studied history to little purpose. 
There certainly is such a thing as religious delusion, or a faith 
of ignorance, in the world, and the humbler class of people are 
somewhat more exposed to this kind of infirmity. But their 
demonstrations have never been as eccentric, or their mistakes 
as contagious, or as difficult to rectify, as those of the thinking 
class. In matters of thought and opinion, there is no end 
either to the new crudities generated, or the newer criticisms 
by which they are extirpated. New types of thought sway the 
successive ages. One school or system expels another. No- 
thing rests, nothing gets a final form, in which it either can or 
ought to stand. The thinking and educated class of minds, 
too, are less capable of many truths, because they are so 
generally preoccupied, wittingly or unwittingly, by a contrary 



S30 OPINIONS OF THINKING MEN 

fashion, and have such an explicit faith in what the learned 
world pretends just then to have settled. On which account 
our Saviour Himself was obliged to seek His adherents, and 
raise up His apostles, among the ingenuous and humble poor, 
saying — I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 
that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 
hast revealed them unto babes. The wise and prudent knew so 
much, as even to be incapable of faith in Him ; and if there 
had been no other class but these learned gentlemen, these 
thinking men of their time, He would scarcely have left a 
follower. But the fishermen, the babes of poverty, were less 
preoccupied, and capable of better things. And for just this 
reason, abating their greater exposure to fantastic and extrava- 
gant delusions, it will be found, as a matter of fact, that the 
gospel of Christ has been more genuinely and evenly held, 
among this class, than it has among the professors and learned 
disciples. They testify one faith, and live one common life of 
grace, in all ages. 

In view of considerations like these, how much does it 
signify, that the thinking men of our time are so ready to pro- 
nounce on the incredibility, or even inadmissibility, of the 
supernatural facts just referred to ? Nothing, it may be, but 
simply this ; that the human mind, as educated mind, is just 
now at the point of religious apogee ; where it is occupied, or 
preoccupied by nature, and cannot think it rational to suppose 
that God does anything longer, which exceeds the causalities of 
nature. Is there, in this, any proper ground of assurance, that, 
within fifty years from this time, it will not be set in a position 
to regard the faith of supernatural facts, as being even necessary 
to the rationality, and the complete system of the universe ? 
If, as I have shown, by the argument here constructed, we act 
supernaturally ourselves, and if the fact of sin supposes a 
higher ground of unity in God's plan than is comprehended in 
mere nature, what less ought we to expect, than that, when the 
thinking mind of the world has finally worn a way through 
nature, ceasing to be hampered and shut in by it as now, it 
will strike into a broader field, and be as ready to believe these 
supernatural facts, as it is at present to reject them ? Indeed, 
there is a kind of law in scepticism itself that must finally 
bring it back from its denial of a supernatural revelation to a 
hearty and hungry embrace of it ; for, no longer staggered by 






HAVE LITTLE AUTHORITY HERE. 331 

the supposition, as thousands now are, that the Scriptures re- 
present a dispensation gone by, which is henceforth incredible, 
it will finally discover that they may be rationally believed, for 
just the reason that God is doing similar wonders now. And 
as certainly as no human soul can rest in mere negation, or, 
what is no better, in nature as the only medium and symbol of 
religion, this discovery will be made. There are, in fact, two 
roads into this faith ; the direct road, and the indirect or round- 
about road of doubt and denial. One is taken by the humble, 
godly souls, whose only want it is to find their Lord, and walk 
with Him ; these go straight into His seat, know Him in His 
private testimony, and the glorious induement of His power. 
The others, wanting only to find Him scientifically, begin at 
nature, jealous of all but nature. They go round and round 
their idol, looking to find a Creator, and Christianity, and a 
present living God in it, and, after they have torn their feet 
long enough, in beating through the briars of scientific reason, 
they will finally come in, as laggards, weary and sore, and join 
themselves to the little ones of faith, saying truly, " This, after 
all, is reason ; to believe the Scriptures, just because the God 
of the Scriptures is the God of to-day ; as conversible now as 
ever, working as mightily, redeeming as gloriously ; to believe 
in the supernatural, too, because we believe in nature ; which, 
without and apart from this necessary complement, were only a 
worthless abortion, a fraction whose integer is lost." 

It is also a matter worthy of particular note, when we are 
falling into the impression, that a verdict of the thinking men 
of our time is entitled to authority on such a question as this, 
that we have so many characters in history which they can no 
way interpret, and which are, in fact, impossible to exist under 
their theory. How awkwardly do they handle such characters, 
and how poorly do they get on in their attempts to solve, or 
even to conceive them. Joan of Arc, for instance— who has 
not observed the strange figure of imbecility made by the mo- 
dern school of literary unbelief, in the attempt to find a place 
for any such character ? They can do nothing with her. In 
their view, she is impossible. And yet she has a place in his- 
tory, and enters into the public life of the French nation, as a 
determining cause of great events, in the same manner as Charle- 
magne or any celebrated commander. She is a phenomenon, 
for which naturalism has no account, and which, under that 



332 THEY MAKE NO GOOD ACCOUNT 

kind of philosophy, had no right to happen. It can say that 
she was a prodigy of straw got up by the leaders, who sought in 
that manner to retrieve the desperate state of their cause ; or, 
that she was insane, or that she was romantic, or that she was 
a nervous and flighty girl, doing she scarce knew what, or, 
finally, that she is a myth, and no real personage. And yet the 
history laughs at all such wisdom, showing us a character real 
and true, that refuses to he explained by any such feeble inven- 
tions in the plane of nature, and can be nowise comprehended 
in that manner. She begins to be intelligible only when she is 
classed with Deborah, as a chieftain called out from the retir- 
ment of her sex, by the election of God, and prepared, super- 
naturally, in the place of secret vision. 

The same thing, in general, may be said of the interpreters of 
Cromwell. Nothing can be made of him as a mere natural man. 
Hume and Clarendon call him a religious hypocrite, as if a hypo- 
crite could be a hero ? Lamartine, simply because he believes 
in a light which is not church light, calls him a fanatic. Car- 
lyle is wiser, and, as far as possible, contrives to let him report 
himself; but as soon as he chances to loosen his own self-reten- 
tion, for a moment, and let us see the man through his panthe- 
istic glasses, a strange letting down will be observed, however 
slight or casual the glimpse taken — it is Cromwell by moon- 
light, and not the real hero. He ceases to be inspired, and 
begins to phosphoresce. He is no more a battle-axe, swung by 
the Lord Almighty, but one that lays on automatically, with 
force enough to make us think that he is. He is great in his 
faith, only it turns out that his faith, meeting no real object, is, 
though he thinks it not, a merely subjective impulse. Known 
to be a stout predestinarian, he is fitly shown to be a thunder- 
shock in battle, as by the momentum of God's eternal will in 
his person ; only it is recollected that predestination, by God, 
is more philosophically phrased by the single word destiny; 
a force without will, or counsel, or end. He is great in power, 
therefore invincible, irresistible, as being set on by the universal 
Nobody. Is this Cromwell ? No genuine Cromwell is found, 
till he is shown by the side of Moses, a man who takes power 
as a burden set upon him by God, and wields it only the more 
sternly and faithfully as power ; a man " not eloquent," but 
" slow of speech," coming down out of the mount, where God 
has taught him, to be the leader, liberator, and lawgiver of his 



OF KNOWN HISTORIC CHARACTERS. 333 

people. This is the view of Cromwell toward which historic 
criticism runs more and more distinctly, and when, at some 
future day, our literature has gotten over the shallows of natural- 
ism, and dares to speak of faith, this will be the Cromwell 
shown. He may not be counted a man equal to Moses, but all 
that is most distinctive and greatest in his life will as certainly 
be referred to a supernatural and divine movement in him. 

And how many characters are there in the history of our 
modern world who can as little be conceived on the footing of 
mere nature as these ! Savonarola, " the fanatic" of history, 
will emerge, not unlikely, clad in the honours of a prophet. 
So of Columbus, Fenelon, Fox, Franke, and a thousand others, 
who walked, consciously or unconsciously, by a supernatural in- 
stigation — they were nothing, it will be seen, save by the secret 
inspiration that bore them on. And how many of God's little 
ones, living and dying in obscurity, have yet done as great won- 
ders in His name as if they had been teachers and heroes ! 

But why is it, some will ask, that we have only to hear of 
these things, and do not see them ? Why must we know them 
only through a degree of distance that takes away knowledge ? 
But the truth is not exactly so. We come a great deal closer to 
them than we think. Having had this great question of super- 
natural fact upon my hands now for a number of years, in a 
determination also to be concluded by no mere conventionalities, 
to observe, inquire, listen, and judge, I have been surprised to 
find how many things were coming to my knowledge and ac- 
quaintance that most persons take it for granted are utterly 
incredible, except in what they call the age of miracles and 
apostolic gifts ; that is, in the first thsee centuries of the Church. 
Indeed, they are become so familiar, after only a few years of 
attention thus directed, and without inquiring after them, that 
their unfamiliar and strange look is gone ; they even appear to 
belong, more or less commonly, to the Church and the general 
economy of the Spirit. 

I will instance, first of all, a case not so clearly religious, but 
explicable in no way, by the mere causalities of nature. As I 
sat by the fire, one stormy November night, in a hotel parlour, 
in the Napa Valley of California, there came in a most vener- 
able and benignant looking person, with his wife, taking their 
seats in the circle. The stranger, as I afterwards learned, was 
Captain Yonnt, a man who came over into California, as a 



334 SUCH FACTS ARE ABUNDANT 

trapper, more than forty years ago. Here he has lived, apart 
from the great world and its questions, acquiring an immense 
landed estate, and becoming a kind of acknowledged patriarch 
in the country. His tall, manly person, and his gracious, 
paternal look, as totally unsophisticated in the expression, as if 
he had never heard of a philosophic doubt or question in his 
life, marked him as the true patriarch. The conversation turned, 
I know not how, on spiritism and the modern necromancy, and 
he discovered a degree of inclination to believe in the reported 
mysteries. His wife, a much younger and apparently Christian 
person, intimated that probably he was predisposed to this 
kind of faith, by a very peculiar experience of his own, and 
evidently desired that he might be drawn out by some intelli- 
gent discussion of his queries. 

At my request he gave me his story. About six or seven 
years previous, in a mid-winter's night, he had a dream, in 
which he saw what appeared to be a company of emigrants, 
arrested by the snows of the mountains, and perishing rapidly 
by cold and hunger. He noted the very cast of the scenery, 
marked by a huge perpendicular front of white rock cliff; he 
saw the men cutting off what appeared to be tree tops, rising 
out of deep gulfs of snow ; he distinguished the very features 
of the persons, and the look of their particular distress. He 
woke, profoundly impressed with the distinctness and apparent 
reality of his dream. At length he fell asleep, and dreamed 
exactly the same dream again. In the morning he could not 
expel it from his mind. Falling in shortly with an old hunter 
comrade, he told him the story, and was only the more deeply 
impressed, by his recognizing, without hesitation, the scenery 
of the dream. This comrade came over the Sierra, by the Car- 
son "Valley Pass, and declared that a spot in the pass answered 
exactly to his description. By this, the unsophisticated patri- 
arch was decided. He immediately collected a company of 
men, with mules and blankets, and all necessary provisions. 
The neighbours were laughing in the meantime at his credulity. 
" No matter," said he, "I am able to do this, and I will, for 
I verily believe that the fact is according to my dream." The 
men were sent into the mountains, one hundred and fifty miles 
distant, directly to the Carson Valley Pass. And there they 
found the company in exactly the condition of the dream, and 
brought in the remnant alive. 



IN OUR OWN TIMES. 335 

A gentleman present said, " You need have no doubt of this; 
for we Californians all know the facts, and the names of the 
families brought in, who now look upon our venerable friend as 
a kind of saviour." These names he gave, and the places where 
they reside, and I found afterwards that the California people 
were ready everywhere to second his testimony. 

Nothing could be more natural than for the good-hearted 
patriarch himself to add, that the brightest thing in his life, and 
that which gave him greatest joy, was his simple faith in that 
dream. I thought also I could see in that joy, the glimmer of 
a true Christian love and life, into which, unawares to himself, 
he had really been entered by that faith. Let any one attempt 
now to account for the coincidences of that dream, by mere 
natural causalities, and he will be glad enough to ease his labour 
by the acknowledgment of a supernatural providence. 

I fell in also, in that new world, with a different and more 
directly Christian example, in the case of an acquaintance, 
whom I had known for the last twenty years; an educated 
man, in successful practice as a physician ; a man who makes 
no affectations of piety, and puts on no airs of sanctimony ; 
living always in a kind of jovial element, and serving everybody 
but himself. He laughs at the current incredulity of men re- 
specting prayer, and relates many instances, out of his own 
experience, to show — for that is his doctrine — that God will 
certainly hear every man's prayer, if only he is honest in it. 
Among others, he gave the following : — He had hired his little 
house, of one room, in a new trading town that was planted 
last year, agreeing to give a rent for it of ten dollars per month. 
At length, on the day preceding the rent day, he found that he 
had nothing in hand to meet the payment, and could not see at 
all whence the money was to come. Consulting with his wife, 
they agreed that prayer, so often tried, was their only hope. 
They went, accordingly, to prayer, and found assurance that 
their want should be supplied. That was the end of their 
trouble, and there they rested, dismissing farther concern. But 
the morning came, and the money did not. The rent owner 
made his appearance earlier than usual. As he entered the 
door, their hearts began to sink, whispering that now, for once, 
they must give it up, and allow that prayer had failed. But 
before the demand was made, a neighbour coming in, called out 
the untimely visitor, engaging him in conversation, a few minutes, 



336 SUCH FACTS ARE ABUNDANT 

at the door. Meantime a stranger came in, saying, " Dr ? 

I owe you ten dollars, for attending me in a fever, at such a 
time, and here is the money." He could muster no recollection, 
either of the man or of the service, but was willing to be 
convinced, and so had the money in hand, after all, when the 
demand was made. When Stilling and Franke recite their 
multitudes of specific answers to prayer, their reports are very 
hastily discredited by many, because of their strangeness. But 
I have heard so many examples, personally, of the kind just 
cited, that I begin to think they are even common. 

Nothing is farther off from the Christian expectation of our 
New England communities than the gift of tongues. So dis- 
tant is their practical habit from any belief in the possible occur- 
rence, that not even the question occurs to their thought. And 
yet a very near Christian friend, intelligent in the highest 
degree, and perfectly reliable to me as my right hand, who was 
present at a rather private, social gathering of Christian dis- 
ciples, assembled to converse and pray together, as in reference 
to some of the higher possibilities of Christian sanctification, 
relates that, after one of the brethren had been speaking, in a 
strain of discouraging self-accusation, another present shortly 
rose, with a strangely beaming look, and, fixing his eye on the 
confessing brother, broke out in a discourse of sounds, wholly 
unintelligible, though apparently a time language, accompany- 
ing the utterances with a very strange and peculiarly impressive 
gesture, such as he never made at any other time ; coming 
finally to a kind of pause, and commencing again, as if at the 
same point, to go over in English, with exactly the same ges- 
tures, what had just been said. It appeared to be an interpre- 
tation, and the matter of it was, a beautifully emphatic utter- 
ance of the great principle of self-renunciation, by which the 
desired victory over self is to be obtained. There had been no 
conversation respecting gifts of any kind, and no reference to 
their possibility. The circle were astounded by the demonstra- 
tion, not knowing what to make of it. The instinct of prudence 
threw them on observing a general silence, and it is a curious 

fact that the public in H have never, to this hour, been 

startled by so much as a rumour of the gift of tongues, neither 
has the name of the speaker been associated with so much as a 
surmise of the real or supposed fact, by which he would be, 
perhaps, unenviably distinguished. It has been a great trial to 



IN OUR OWN TIMES. 337 

him, it is said, to submit himself to this demonstration ; which 
has recurred several times. 

I have heard also of as many as three distinct cases of heal- 
ing near at hand ; one where a father whose nearly grown-up 
daughter, supposed to be near to death, under the ravages of a 
brain fever, was permitted, in answer to his prayers, to see her 
rise up almost immediately, and the next day walking forth 
completely well ; one where a bad and dangerous swelling was 
immediately cured ; another where a sick man was restored, 
when life was despaired of by his family. 

In addition to these more domestic examples, I became 
acquainted, about two years ago, in a distant part of the world, 
with an English gentleman, whose faith in the gift of healing 
had been established by his own personal exercise of it. He 
was a man whose connexions and culture, whose well-formed, 
tall, and robust-looking person, whose beautifully simple and 
humble manners, and whose blameless, universally respected 
life among strangers not of the same faith, and knowing him 
only by his virtues and the sacrifices he was making for his 
opinions, were so many conspiring tokens winning him a char- 
acter of confidence that excluded any rational distrust of his 
representations. He gave me a full account, in manuscript, of 
some of the cases in which the healing power appeared to be 
given him, with liberty to use them, as may best serve the con- 
venience of my present subject. 

It became a question with him, soon after his conversion, 
whether, as he had been healed spiritually, he ought not also to 
expect and receive the healing of his body by the same faith ; 
for he had then been an invalid for a long time, with only a 
slender hope of recovery. After a hard struggle of mind, he 
was able, dismissing all his prescribed remedies, to throw him- 
self on God, and was immediately and permanently made whole. 

At length one of his children, whom he had with him away 
from home, was taken ill with a scarlet fever. And " now the 
question was," I give his own words, " what was to be done ? 
The Lord had indeed healed my own sicknesses, but would he 
heal my son ? I conferred with a brother in the Lord, who, 
having no faith in Christ's healing power, urged me to send 
instantly for the doctor, and despatched his groom on horseback 
to fetch him. Before the doctor arrived, my mind was filled 
with revelation on the subject. I saw that I had fallen into a 






338 SUCH FACTS ARE ABUNDANT 

snare, by turning away from the Lord's healing hand, to lean 
on medical skill. I felt grievously condemned in my con- 
science. A fear also fell on me, that if I persevered in this 
unbelieving course, my son would die, as his eldest brother had. 
The symptoms in both were precisely similar. The doctor 
arrived. My son, he said, was suffering from a scarlet fever, 
and medicine should be sent immediately. While he stood pre- 
scribing, I resolved to withdraw the child, and cast him on the 
Lord. And when he was gone, I called the nurse and told her 
to take the child into the nursery and lay him on the bed. I 
then fell on my knees confessing the sin I had committed against 
the Lord's healing power. I also prayed most earnestly that it 
would please my Heavenly Father to forgive my sin, and to 
show that He forgave it, by causing the fever to be rebuked. 
I received a mighty conviction that my prayer was heard, and 
I arose and went to the nursery, at the end of a long passage, 
to see what the Lord had done, and on opening the door, to 
my astonishment, the boy was sitting up in his bed, and on see- 
ing me cried out, ' I am quite well and want to have my dinner.' 
In an hour he was dressed, and well, and eating his dinner ; 
and when the physic arrived it was cast out of the window. 
Next morning the doctor returned, and on meeting me at the 
garden gate, he said, ' I hope your son is no worse ?' ' He is 
very well, I thank you,' said I, in reply. 'What can you 
mean ?' rejoined the doctor. ' I will tell you, come in and sit 
down.' I then told him all that had occurred, at which he 
fairly gasped with surprise. ' May I see your son ?' he asked. 
' Certainly, doctor, but I see that you do not believe.' We 
proceeded up stairs, and my son was playing with his brother 
on the floor. The doctor felt his pulse and said, ' Yes, the 
fever is gone.' Finding also a fine, healthy surface on his 
tongue, he added, ' Yes, he is quite well, I suppose it was the 
crisis of his disease !' " 

Another of the cases which he reports shows more fully the 
working of his own mind, on the instant of healing. It was 
the case of a poor man's child, who had heard him advocate the 
faith of healing, and now that the physician, after attending 
him for many months of illness, had given the little patient up, 
saying that he could do no more, the parents sent for him, in 
their extremity, to come and heal their son. He replied to the 
father, " My dear friend, I cannot heal your son, I can do 



IN OUR OWN TIMES. 339 

nothing to help him. All that I can do is to ask you to kneel 
clown and pray with me, to Christ, that we may know what is 
His will in this matter." "He immediately knelt down with 
me," and, the written account continues, " my prayer was a 
reminding of the Lord Jesus Christ of His mercy to the sick, 
when He was on the earth, and that He never sent any sick 
away unhealed. I then presented the petition of the father 
and mother, that their son might be healed, and besought the 
Lord to show what His will was in the case. Whilst I was 
making the supplication, it was revealed to me through the 
Holy Spirit, that I was to lay hands on the boy, and receiving 
at the time great faith to do so, I rose and, not wishing to be 
observed by the father, I laid my hand on the lad's head, and 
said in a low tone of voice, ' I lay my hand on thee in the 
name of Jesus Christ. ' In an instant I saw colour rush into his 
pale cheeks, and it seemed as if a glow of health was given, in- 
somuch that I said involuntarily, ' I think your son will recover.' 
I then hastily left the room. In less than an hour, the mother 
came to my house and insisted on seeing me, to tell me the 
wonderful things that had happened to her son. The result 
was that the boy was about the next day." 

The other cases narrated by him are scarcely less remarkable. 
At the same time, he admits, with characteristic ingenuousness, 
that no such gift has been vouchsafed him now, for a number 
of years, and that most of the expectations he had in con- 
nexion with the apostolic wonder, thus restored, have been 
disappointed. What God's design was, in the gift thus tempo- 
rarily bestowed, is a profound mystery to him, and he submits 
himself calmly in it to the better, though inscrutable wisdom of 
God. Probably enough, the reason of his gift was exhausted 
in affording, to these truths of faith, that evidence which is 
necessary to their just equilibrium. 

I have hesitated much whether to speak of a case that, in all 
its varied stages, has been under my own personal inspection, 
and I am decided by the consideration that, while it shows no 
healing, by a gift, it does show, only the more convincingly, a 
supernatural grace of healing entered into the faith of the 
subject herself. She is an intelligent, well-educated young 
woman, of a more than commonly strong and somewhat restive 
natural temperament, the daughter of a Christian man, living 
in rather depressed circumstances, but profoundly respected for 



340 SUCH FACTS ARE ABUNDANT 

his character. Eleven years ago this daughter, who before had 
begun to show symptoms of disease, in a considerable distortion 
of the spine, became a great sufferer in the still worse complica- 
tions of a hip disease. I have never looked on such scenes of 
distress in any other case, and hope I may never witness such 
again. Several times she was given up by her physicians, and her 
death was expected daily ; I should hardly tell the whole truth, 
if I did not say, longed for, even more constantly. After about 
two years, however, her disease took a more quiet shape, and 
the suffering was greatly diminished. Thus she lay for nine 
long years of helplessness, with both feet drawn up under 
her, and one of them so close that it was difficult to get in a 
thickness of cloth under the knee to prevent inflammation. 
The physicians agreed that there was nothing more to be 
done, and that she must wait her time ; which, after a while 
she had learned to do, with the sweetest patience and equa- 
nimity. Every impulse in her restive nature was now tamed 
to God's will, and she blessed the hand which was pressing her 
so close to the divine friendship. If inquired of, at any time, 
whether she would like to get well, she uniformly answered, 
" No ; " adding that she was afraid she might not stand fast, 
but might turn away from her fidelity, in which she was now 
so profoundly peaceful and happy. 

But it occurred to her finally that, if God could restore her, 
He might also keep her, and the question rose whether she 
ought not to trust Him. At last, she was beginning to think 
it might be her duty to believe in God's healing as well as keep- 
ing, and in that manner to pray. Having some attack of acute 
disease, a physician was called in, and, after the attack was 
quelled, he began to give some hopeful answers to her queries 
about the possibility of a restoration of her limbs. Shortly 
before this, too, her father, who was visited with a great accu- 
mulation of trials, went through an awful struggle with God's 
justice rising up against Him in agonies of accusation. But he 
was quelled and comforted, and filled, as the result, with all 
divinest peace. And shortly after that he had a dream, which 
presented his daughter as well, completely healed, before him. 
But it raised no expectation, either then, or afterwards, and he 
does not refer to it now as having had any connexion at all 
with the subsequent facts — he does not much confide in dreams. 
But his daughter was beginning now to believe that she might 



IN OUR OWN TIMES. 341 

be made well, and really set herself to it as her settled faith ; 
and he himself was allowing often the thought that possibly it 
might somehow be otherwise with her. Remedies were not 
discarded, but applied faithfully and perseveringly. The pro- 
blem was, how to use natural causes with a faith in super- 
natural helps. In a short time the limbs were brought down, 
one of them to touch the floor, then both, then she stood, and 
next she walked. I knew the change that was going on, but, 
not having seen her for some weeks, I was none the less sur- 
prised, when walking in a neighbouring street, to see her skip- 
ing down a high flight of steps, with scarcely a perceptible 
token of lameness. Ask her family now what this means, and 
by what power it has come to pass, and they answer promptly, 
" By the power of God." She herself says the same, answering 
out of her own consciousness. She believes that her physician 
has done well, and that God sent him to be a minister to her 
faith, but she declares that she has all the while felt the vigour 
coming into her by and through her faith, and that, when she 
first stood, she consciously stood by a divine power, and could 
no more have stood without the sense of it, or the day before it 
came, than she could have supported the world. This protes- 
tation of hers I feel bound to honour ; though very well aware 
that the case may be turned, by saying that the second causes 
appealed to wrought the cure. But is it not more philosophical, 
a great deal, to take the inward testimony of the subject, and 
see the higher consciousness of her faith struggling with the re- 
medies, and contributing a force superior, in fact, to all remedies ? 
Indeed, I have a peculiar satisfaction in the facts of this case, 
just because the natural and supernatural are so rationally and 
soundly combined. The problem of their possible concur- 
ence is evenly held, and there is time enough occupied, in 
the cure, to show a process. " Go to the pool of Siloam, and 
wash " — even Christ himself used nature as a means, to pro- 
voke the necessary faith, when nature had, in fact, no virtue in 
itself. 

I cite only one more witness ; a man who carries the 
manner and supports the office of a prophet, though without 
claiming the repute of it himself. He is a fugitive from slavery, 
whose name I had barely heard, but whose character and life 
have been known to many in our community, for the last twenty 
years. He called at my door, about the time I was sketching 



342 SUCH FACTS ARE ABUNDANT 

the outline of this chapter, requesting an interview. As I 
entered the room, it was quite evident that he was struggling 
with a good deal of mental agitation, though his manner was 
firm, and even dignified. He said immediately, that he had 
come to me " with a message from de Lord." I replied, that 
I was glad if he had any so good thing as that for me, and 
hoped he would deliver it faithfully. He told me, in terms of 
great delicacy, and with a seriousness that excluded all appear- 
ance of a design to win his way by flattery, that he had con- 
ceived the greatest personal interest in me, because, in hearing 
me once or twice, he had discovered that God was teaching me, 
and discovering Himself to me in a way that was specially hope- 
ful ; and that, for this very reason, he had been suffering the 
greatest personal burdens of feeling on my account. For more 
than a year he had been praying for me, and sometimes in the 
night, because of his apprehension that I had made a false step, 
and been disobedient to the heavenly vision. During all this 
time he had been struggling also with the question, whether he 
might come and see me, and testify his concern for me ? One 
must be a very poor Christian, not to be deeply touched by such 
a discovery — one of the humblest of God's children, a stranger, 
trembling and watching for Him, in his place of obscurity, and 
daring, only with the greatest difficulty, to come and disburden 
his heart. 

I asked him to explain, and not to suffer any feeling of con- 
straint. In a manner of the greatest deference possible, and 
with a most singularly beautiful skill, he went on, gathering 
round his point, and keeping it all the while concealed as he 
was nearing it, straightening up his tall manly form, dropping 
out his Africanisms, rising in the port of his language, beaming 
with a look of intelligence and spiritual beauty, all in a manner 
to second his prophetic formulas — " The Lord said to me" thus 
and thus ; " The Lord has sent me to say ; " till I also, as I 
gazed upon him, was obliged internally to confess, " Verily, 
Nathan the prophet has come again ! " It was really a scene 
such as any painter might look a long time to find — such 
dignity in one so humble ; expression so lofty and yet so gentle 
and respectful ; the air of a prophet so commanding and posi- 
tive, and yet in such divine authority as to allow no sense of 
forwardness or presumption. 

It came out finally, as the burden of the message, that on a 



IN OUR OWN TIMES. 343 

certain occasion, and in reference to a certain public matter, I 
had undertaken that which could not but withdraw me from 
God's teaching, and was certain to obscure the revelations 
otherwise ready and waiting to be made. " Yes," I replied, 
11 but there was nothing wrong in what I undertook to set 
forward. It brought no scandal on religion. It concerned, you 
will admit, the real benefit of the public in all future times." 
" Ah, yes," he answered, " it was well enough to be done, but it 
was not for you. God had other and better things for you. He 
was calling you to Himself, and it was yours to go with Him, 
jiot to be labouring in things more properly belonging to other 
men." I had given him the plea by which, drawing on my 
natural judgment, I had justified myself in going into the en- 
gagement in question. Indeed, to have had any scruple on 
this account, I have no doubt would be commonly considered 
by intelligent persons to be even a weakness. And yet, I am 
obliged to confess to a strong and even prevalent impression 
that my humble brother was right. For the real stress of his 
message lay, not so much in the particular instance referred to, 
as in that more general infirmity or mistake, which the instance 
might be used to represent ; viz., the tendency of every most 
earnest soul to be diverted from its aims by things external. 
His spiritual perceptions were deep enough to lay hold of a 
general infirmity, which was only the more impressively cor- 
rected by a particular example, and in this manner his piercing 
words of love were answered by the settled assent of my Chris- 
tian consciousness. 

I thanked him for his message, and even looked upon him 
with a kind of reverence as we parted. I found, on inquiry, 
that he was a man without blame, industrious, pure, a husband 
and father, faithful to his office, and always in the same high 
key of Christian living. But the people of his colour, know- 
ing him well, and having nothing to say against him, could 
yet offer no opinion at all concerning him. He was plainly 
enough a strange being to them; they could make nothing 
of him. The most they could say was, that he is always the 
same. 

I have since visited him in his little shop, and drawn out of 
him the story of his life. He became a Christian about the 
time of his arrival at manhood, and gives a very clear and 
beautiful account of his conversion. And the Lord, he says, 



344 SUCH FACTS ARE ABUNDANT 

told him at that time that he should be free, soul and body. 
To which he answered, " Yea, Lord, I know it." A promise 
that was afterwards fulfilled in a very strange and wonderful 
deliverance. I observed that in the account he gave me, 
he was continually saying, in the manner of the prophets, 
"The Lord said," and "the Lord commanded," and "the 
Lord promised," and I called his attention to the fact, asking, 
— what do you mean by this ? Do you hear words audibly 
spoken ? " Oh no." " What then ? Do you think what ap- 
pears to be said to you, and call that the saying of the Lord ? " 
"Yes, I think it, but that is not all." "How then do you 

know that it is anything more than 's thought ? " " Well, 

I know it, I feel it to be not from me, and I can tell you things 
that show it to be so ;" reciting facts which, if they are true, 
prove beyond a question ihe certainty of some illumination not 
of himself. "Why, then," I asked, " does God teach you in 
this manner and not me ? I feel a strong conviction, some- 
times, that I am in the will, I know not how, and the directing 
counsel of God, but I could never say as you do, ' The Lord 
said thus to me.' " " Ah," said he, " but you have the means, 
you can read as I cannot, you have great learning. But I 
am a poor ignorant child, and Grod does with me just as He 
can." Whatever may be thought of his revelations, none, I 
think, will deny him in his reply the credit of a true philo- 
sophy. What can be worthier of God than to be the guide 
of this faithful and otherwise dejected man, making up for 
his privations of ignorance by the fuller and more open vision 
of Himself ? 

And yet I should leave a wrong impression were I not to say 
that this Christian fugitive, this unlettered body servant, now of 
Christ, as once of his earthly master, is deep in the wisdom of 
the Scriptures, quotes them continually with a remarkable elo- 
quence and propriety, and with a degree of insight which many 
of the best educated preachers might envy. He also believes 
that God has healed the sick, in many instances, in immediate 
connexion with his prayers, giving the names and particulars 
without scruple. 

Such now are the kinds of religious exercises and demonstra- 
tions that are still extant, even in our own time, in certain 
walks of society. In that humbler stratum of life, where the 
conventionalities and carnal judgments of the world have less 



IN OUR OWN TIMES. 34.5 

power, there are characters blooming in the holiest type of 
Christian love and beanty, who talk and pray, and, as they 
think, operate apostolically, as if God were all to them that He 
ever was to the Church in the days of her primitive grace. 
And it is much to know that, while the higher tiers of the wise 
and prudent are assuming so confidently the absolute discon- 
tinuance of all apostolic gifts, there are yet, in every age, great 
numbers of godly souls, and especially in the lower ranges of 
life, to whom the conventionalities of opinion are nothing, and 
the walk with God everything, who dare to claim an open state 
with Him ; to pray with the same expectation, and to speak of 
faith in the same manner, as if they had lived in the apostolic 
times. And they are not the noisy, violent class who delight 
in the bodily exercises that profit little, mistaking the fumes 
of passion for the revelations of God, but they are, for the 
most part, such as walk in silence and dwell in the shades of 
obscurity. And that man has lived to little purpose, who has 
not learned that what the great world pities, and its teachers 
disallow, even though mixed with tokens of weakness, is many 
times deepest in truth, and closest to the real sublimities of 
life and religion. 

That I may not leave a wrong impression, or an impression 
that is not according to truth, I feel obliged to add, in con- 
cluding this chapter, that I do not seem to be as positive and 
full in my faith on this subject as I ought to be, and as my 
arguments themselves may seem to indicate. As regards the 
general truth that supernatural facts, such as healings, tongues, 
and other gifts, may as well be manifested now as at any former 
time, and that there has never been a formal discontinuance, I 
am perfectly satisfied. I know no proof to the contrary that 
appears to me to have a straw's weight. And yet, when I 
come to the question of being in such gifts, or of receiving into 
easy credit those who appear to be, I acknowledge that, for 
some reason, either because of some latent subjection to the 
conventionalities of philosophy, or to the worse conventionalities 
of sin, belief does not follow, save in a somewhat faltering and 
equivocal way. Arguments for the possibility are good, but 
evidences for the fact do not correspond. But there is nothing 
peculiar in this ; it is even so with many great questions of 
God and immortality. The arguments are good and clear, but, 
for some reason, thev do not make frith, and we are siila 



346 STILL SLOW TO BELIEVE WHAT IS CREDIBLE. 

surprised to find, in our practice, that we only doubtfully believe. 
To believe these supernatural things, in the form of particular 
facts, is certainly difficult ; and how conscious are we, as we 
set ourselves to the questions, of the weakness of our vacilla- 
tions ! Pardon us, Lord, that when we make so much of mere 
credibilities and rationalities of opinion, we are yet so slow to 
believe that what we have shown to be credible and rational 
is actually coming to pass. 



CONCLUSION STATED. 647 



CHAPTER XV. 

CONCLUSION STATED.— USES AND RESULTS. 

The course of argument proposed in this treatise is now 
completed. It only remains to state, as definitely as may be, 
how far it goes, or in what way and degree it establishes the 
main point in issue ; and also to gather up some of the remote 
and subordinate results that appear to be involved in it. 

It was undertaken mainly to establish the credibility and 
historic fact of what is supernatural in the Christian gospels. 
The problem was, in fact, to frame an argument thatj on one 
hand, will virtually settle the question of a mythical origin of 
the gospels, without going into a direct controversy on that 
footing, where the points made are too many and loose to 
allow any very decisive result; also to frame an argument 
that, avoiding, on the other, the issue of infallible inspiration, 
which involves insuperable difficulties in the statement, will 
yet virtually gain all that is sought for the Christian revelation 
under that issue ; viz., a genuine, comprehensive faith in its 
supernatural origin as a gift of God to man. 

The argument presented turns principally on two facts ; viz., 
the fact that we act supernaturally ourselves, which God and 
other created spirits may as well do as we ; and the fact of 
sin, which is both a fact of universal observation and of univer- 
sal consciousness. On the ground of these two facts, it has 
been shown, first, that nature is not the proper system of God, 
but only an inferior, subordinate, and merely instrumental part, 
and, in that sense, a part complemental to the grand super- 
natural empire, in which the real system of God is centred ; 
secondly, that what is commonly called nature is no such integer 



318 THE ARGUMENT ESTABLISHES 

of order and harmony as is commonly assumed, but is, in fact, 
a condition of unnature, being a scheme of causalities disordered 
by sin, and set on courses of retributive action that imply 
perpetual misdirection ; so that, apart from a co-eternal factor 
of supernatural redemption, what the naturalists regard as the 
real totality, or system of nature, is not only become a whole 
that groaneth and travaileth in pain together, but must inevit- 
ably continue to groan, till relief and deliverance are brought, 
by some force supernatural that is equal to the occasion. 

A supernatural work of redemption becomes, in this view, a 
kind of intellectual necessity ; because otherwise the integrity 
and real unity of counsel, in a proper frame of order, appear to 
be wanting. The strongest possible presumption is raised, in 
this manner, for just such a work as Christianity undertakes 
and declares to be undertaken — as it should be — from before 
the foundation of the world; a work that is no afterthought, 
but enters into the original unity of the great scheme of exist- 
ence itself. When Christ appears, therefore, we take up the 
record of His life, and show that He is not only a supernatural 
person, as all men are, but a supernatural person in the still 
higher degree of being also superhuman ; that He has come 
into our world as not being of it, that His character can be 
nowise classed with human characters ; in short, that He is a 
living, self- evidencing miracle in His person. Then, that He 
should perform miracles is scarcely less than a necessary con- 
sequence. We also show that Christianity, as a plan of super- 
natural grace, contains hidden marks of verity, which only 
appear when it is held up in a light to show them, and which, 
as being latent in this manner, could not be of man. We have 
also shown that the world itself is governed in the interest of' 
Christianity, and that supernatural facts are occurring now, or 
have never been finally discontinued. It may be too much to 
claim that we have unanswerably established the fact of miracles 
performed in our time — it is more exact to say, that we have 
shown the assumption of their non- performance, of which so 
much is made by many critics, to be groundless, and that their 
continuance, which may be asserted with sufficient reason, they 
can no way disprove. 

What now is the precise bearing of all this on the historic 
verity and the supernatural origin of the gospels, or of the 
Christian revelation generally? As regards the matter of an 



THE VERITY OF THE GOSPELS. 349 

exact verbal inspiration, nothing directly ; that is a question 
waived, or kept out of sight ; and yet the mind is brought to 
a landing-place, where, without being perplexed by impossible 
definitions and strained arguments in their behalf, it will 
acquiesce, as it were, naturally, in the fact of a general, un- 
defined inspiration, having no longer any quarrel to maintain, 
because the conditions of quarrel are taken away. The question 
of inspired verity is not left, by our argument, in any such 
position, as when it is held that the moral ideas and spiritual 
truths only of the Scriptures are infallibly given, and their 
historic matter left to be disposed of as it may ; for the great, 
commanding, principal facts are shown to be historically true. 
If any debate is to be had, it must be regarding certain sub- 
ordinate and particular facts that are questioned, because of 
some specially suspicious indications that stumble belief. And 
little stress is likely to be laid on these, because the working 
plan of Christianity, as a regenerative, supernatural grace, is 
now on foot as a verity already established ; so that the mind 
is set on a higher plane of thought than when it only admits 
a Christianity qualified, or about to be qualified, down to a 
mere doctrine of nature and natural development, and is pre- 
pared, in that manner, to be stumbled by the smallest difficulties. 

The mythical origin of the gospels is, in this manner, refuted, 
without any particular notice of its proofs, by a process farther 
back and more summary. To untwist, one by one, its perverse 
ingenuities, and wade through its mires of false learning, will 
be necessary to no one who has found a Christ among men, 
impossible to be classed with men ; doing His miracles, and 
erecting, on the earth, His supernatural kingdom. Not even 
Dr Strauss would ever have undertaken this kind of argument, if 
he had not first assumed the incredibility of anything super- 
natural ; in which assumption, after all, the main plausibility 
of his argument consists. 

It is very true that we have not proved the historic verity 
of all the miracles. We have only shown that Christ was a 
miracle Himself, in His own person, and performed miracles. 
Whether he performed this or that miracle, exactly as related, 
may yet be questioned. Some of the facts reported as miracles, 
looking only at the form of the language, may be otherwise 
explained ; as, for example, the disturbing of the water by the 
angel in the pool of Bethesda ; where it may have been the 



350 THE ARGUMENT ESTABLISHES 

writer's intention only to give the current faith or impression of 
the time. If any one chooses to deny the cursing of the fig-tree 
because it was an act of ill-nature, he can take that low view of 
the transaction ; only he is likely, when confronted with the 
suggestion that it was done as an eloquent exhibition of the great 
moral truth, that God will blast every tree that bears no fruit — 
a truth which could not be as impressively taught in words — to 
feel the lowness and perversity of his construction too sensibly 
to find much comfort in it. The miraculous nativity of Jesus 
may be questioned, by any one who can see nothing in it but 
an extravagance shocking to reason, or a myth, in the sem- 
blance of narrative, that displaces any supposition of historic 
verity in the fact. But given the fact that an incarnation is 
wanted, that Christ is declared to be the Word incarnate, and 
shown, by His character, to have come into the world as not 
being of it, what more can be needed than to put the objector 
on the question, in what other manner a real incarnation of the 
divine in the human could be accomplished, that should be as 
close to human feeling, and as strictly historic in its introduc- 
tion, as this of the miraculous nativity ? And if the objector 
will but let his imagination rise to the real pitch of the subject, 
it will be strange if he does not even begin to feel himself kindled 
with Mary in her song of triumph, and accept the whole history 
as one transcendently beautiful and sublime. In the same man- 
ner, any one is at liberty still, as far as our argument is con- 
cerned, to speak of discrepancies between the Gospels, or between 
the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, but now that Christ, 
and His miracles, and His supernatural kingdom, are seen stand- 
ing forth as facts already established, facts which cannot be 
shaken by any mere discrepancies in the narrative, he is much 
more likely to accept these apparent disagreements, in matters 
trivial, as confirmations of the Christian truth, and use them as 
commendations of it to our confidence. 

But it may be objected, contrary to this, by some over- 
strenuous or over-punctual believer, that our argument, which 
stops short of proving everything, leaves a gate open to every 
sort of looseness ; that, as the issue is here qualified, a war 
begun on each particular fact will finally cut off, in detail, all 
that seemed to be established in the general ; so that nothing 
will, in fact, be left I think otherwise. The difficulty never 
has been to establish this or that miracle, but to establish any 



THE VERITY OF THE GOSPELS. 351 

miracle at all, or the credibility of any. One miracle proved, 
or the credibility of one, is virtually an end of all debate, for 
the back of scepticism is there broken. Besides, the argument 
we institute puts the doubter in a new and advanced- position. 
He has verified Christ, the grand, central wonder, the disorder 
and fall of nature, the need of a supernatural grace and power, 
even to complete the intelligent unity of God's plan, and what 
is more, the fact that he himself exists in a heavenly, super- 
natural kingdom, where he meets, on every side, the manifested 
love and reconciling grace of God. The atmosphere of doubt 
and debate is already cleared. To break loose now, on some 
particular miracle, or question of fact, is impossible. Even if 
he gain his point, he is the loser ; for he only mars the glory 
of a faith that is already established, and spots with blemish 
the religion that already has a right to his faith. He does not 
break Christianity down, he only makes it a faith less welcome 
and clear. In such a position, he will naturally prefer to have 
the gospel of his faith strong as it may be ; holding always a 
presumption against the suggestions of doubt, and allowing to 
all the minor points of difficulty, that favourable construction by 
which they will be cleared. 

On the whole, we seem to make out by our argument a vin- 
dication of the supernatural truth of the Gospels, that it is not 
only sufficient, but practically complete, and, besides, one that • 
has many advantages. We go into no debate about the canon, 
which is likely to issue in a manner that is not really convinc- 
ing; we start no claim of verbal inspiration, such as takes 
away the confidence and establishes the rational disrespect of 
the sceptic before the argument is begun ; we sharpen no point 
of infallibility down so as to prick and fasten each particular 
iota of the book, afterwards to concede variations, of copy, de- 
facts of style, mistakes in numerals, and as many other little 
discrepancies as we must. But we try to establish by a pro- 
cess that is intelligent and worthy of respect, the historic out- 
posts, Christ and his miracles, and with these, also, the grand 
working-plan of a supernatural grace and salvation. After 
this, the mind will gravitate, as of course, toward a general, 
inclusive, comprehensive faith, and we shall find no language 
that so fitly expresses our conviction, as to say, " All scripture 
is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 



352 HOW RELATED TO THE 

Superficially viewed, there is a certain parallelism between 
this argument for the supernatural in religion, and that of Mr 
Parker and the naturalistic school generally against it, and it 
is possible that some will be perverse enough to accuse me of 
a similar treatment of revelation. I will never condescend to 
widen purposely, or for reasons politic and prudential, the dis- 
tance between me and another who has offended the Christian 
public. But it may show the method of my argument more 
exactly if I sketch a brief comparison — -just as I have been 
referring heretofore to Mr Parker, to get light and shade 
for my subject, without raising any special controversy with 
him. 

Mr Parker undertakes to frame a rational view of religion 
that sets it on the footing of nature. I have undertaken to 
frame a rational view of religion that comprehends nature 
and the supernatural as co- eternal factors in the universal system 
of God. 

He maintains the complete universality of natural laws, and 
refuses to believe in a miracle, because it is a suspension of the 
laws of nature. I believe as firmly in the universality of laws, 
but not of natural laws ; maintaining that the human will 
itself is regulated by no laws of natural causality, and has 
power even to act upon the lines of cause and effect in nature. 
God, of course, may do the same ; which, if he do it, is a miracle. 
Not a miracle because the laws of nature are suspended ; for they 
are not, but are only varied in their action by the intervention 
of a power external, as when we vary their results ourselves. 
Yet still there is a law for the intervention of God, viz., the 
law of His end ; which, though it be no term of nature, but 
a rule of intelligence and rational sovereignty, would require 
Him to perform the same miracle again a thousand times 
over in exactly the same conditions. To define a miracle, 
therefore, to be a suspension of the lawa of nature, is irrational 
and wholly below the subject. With Mr Parker, I believe in 
no such miracle. And yet, in the result of this argument, I 
am brought to accept all the miracles of Christ, while he rejects 
them all. 

Mr Parker takes up the admission, so frequently and gra- 
tuitously made, that miracles and all supernatural gifts have 
been discontinued, and are now no longer credible, and presses 
the inference that, being now incredible, they never were any 



METHOD OF NATURALISM. 353 

less so ; that pushing them back, in time, is only a trick to 
get their incredibility so far off that we shall not feel it, and 
that the only ingenuous conclusion is that, not occurring now, 
they never did occur. It is certainly a very remarkable turn, 
as I think any one must admit, that supernatural facts, being 
credible down to some certain year of the world's almanac, 
then begin to be incredible ; , incredible in their very nature, so 
that any one who pretends to believe in them is, of course, to 
be set down as an enthusiast or a charlatan. Mr Parker takes 
the assumption tendered, and reasons from it. I reject the 
assumption, and his inferences with it. 

Mr Parker has much to say of inspiration. He believes 
that every man will be inspired under fixed laws of nature, just 
according to his goodness. In maintaining that all God's 
supernatural works, which include inspirations, of course, are 
ordered by fixed laws, I may seem to coincide. But the fixed 
laws of intelligence or counsel, the laws of reason as related to 
his end, are a very different matter from the fixed laws of 
causality in nature. Besides, if we look at the question with 
Christian eyes, there appears to be a little inversion of method 
in the doctrine that, if men will be good, they shall be rewarded 
by a consequent inspiration. It would be as much more ra- 
tional, as it is more Christian, to put the inspiration in advance 
of the goodness, and say that men will be good accordingly 
as God inspires them. Not even this will hold, however, for 
God no doubt exerts an inspiring force in men to make them 
good, which they may even fatally obstruct by their perversity. 
The true doctrine of inspiration cannot be stated in any such sum- 
mary manner. All inspirations are acts of divine sovereignty, 
under laws of reason which regulate that sovereignty. And 
then there are two modes of inspiration, one that is concerned 
to re-establish the normal state of being, or the state of divine 
consciousness, in which the soul as a free spirit comes to abide 
and live in the divine movement, and is kept, strengthened, 
guided, exalted, by the inward revelation of God ; where it may 
be truly said that the soul is inspired accordingly as it yields 
itself conformably to God's will, and trustfully to the inspiring 
grace. The other mode of inspiration may be called the inspi- 
ration of use ; where the doctrine is, that God inspires men 
according to the use He will make of them. And here the 
kinds or qualities are as many as the uses. He inspires the 



354 HOW RELATED TO THE 

shepherd Amos, not to write Isaiah's prophecy, but the pro- 
phecy of Amos. He inspires Bezaleel to devise cunning works, 
to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of 
stones, and Moses to be the leader and lawgiver of His people. 
He will give the same man a variable inspiration, setting Paul, 
for example, in one mood of power when he lays his scorching 
rebuke on the head of the Corinthians, and in a very different, 
when he chants in the fifteenth chapter his sublime lyric on the 
resurrection. It is doubtless true, also, that as God has a place 
and a use for every man, so He has an inspiration for him ; 
adding honour thus, and comfort and capacity to every employ- 
ment. The degree also of this inspiration may be supposed to 
have some fixed relation to the faith and faithfulness of the sub- 
ject, though it is difficult to say what we mean by degrees where 
the kinds are and must be different. The doctrine of Mr Parker 
wholly ignores or disallows this inspiration of use, and recognizes 
nothing but the inspiration of character. If a prophet, there- 
fore, writes a book of scripture with a higher inspiration than 
another man has, who writes nothing, it is because he is a better 
man. Let all men be good then, and all will be able to write 
as good books as he. A very convenient and short way of let- 
ting down the honours of Scripture ; but it may be that God 
wants only a few men for this particular use, or to write books 
of scripture, as He wanted only one to be a Moses and one to 
be a Bezaleel. And if this be so, it is very certain that He will 
inspire as many as He wants for the uses wanted, and no more. 
It may be that, as He never wants another Moses, so He never 
wants another book of scripture written, and it may be that He 
does. Should He ever want another, He will be able to qualify 
His man ; if not, no other will be qualified. Meantime, it must 
be enough that He will have His own counsel, and will aid and 
qualify all men for the uses He appoints. On this ground it is 
no such offence to reason to suppose that God has inspired par- 
ticular men to have a part in the written revelation of His will, 
as Mr Parker thinks it to be, and the air of confidence he as- 
sumes when setting forth the conditions under which all men 
may have as good or the same inspiration as the writers .of Scrip- 
tures, indicates rather a want of due consideration than a philo- 
sophic superiority. God conducts things to their uses by laws 
of causality ; spirits to their uses by inspirations ; and, as the 
different kinds of things ponderable and imponderable, solid and 



?IETHOD OF NATURALISM. 355 

fluid, elastic and inelastic, organic and inorganic, are kept to 
their uses by different kinds of laws, so it is but rational to 
believe that God will prepare men to their different places and 
uses by different kinds of inspiration. 

I make no apology, then, for any look of parallelism that 
may be observed between the shaping of my argument and that 
of Mr Parker. On the contrary, I prefer to recognize the fact, 
thus far indicated, that he is pressed by the real difficulties of 
the question, and conceives intelligently many of the points that 
must appear, in any genuinely intellectual solution. It has 
sometimes seemed to me that, with all his aversion to superna- 
turalism, he might as well be satisfied with the general solution 
I have given, upon the footing of supernaturalism, as with his 
own upon the footing of nature. Had he sufficiently weighed 
certain questions that are fundamental, but which he virtually 
ignores ; had he determined what is the exact definition of the 
supernatural, as related to nature, and, in that manner, come 
upon the fact that we are supernaturally ourselves ; had he also 
brought his mind closely enough to the great question of sin, to 
expel all ambiguity concerning it — holding the fact of sin as 
positively, in the field of criticism, as he does when he attacks 
slaveryas a reformer, and tracing that fact to its legitimate 
results — I see not how he could have escaped a different con- 
clusion. Instead of making nature the kingdom of God, he 
would have made it the instrument only, or mere field of the 
kingdom ; a theatre in which the powers of the kingdom have 
their parts. Instead of looking for inspiration by the laws of 
nature, which, if the word has any meaning deeper than sem- 
blance, is even absurd, he would have seen it to be a fact super- 
natural. He would have found a place for prayer, better than 
a dumb-bell exercise before the terms of natural causality and 
consequence. His remorseless fidelity to a mistaken argument 
would not have compelled him to rob the Christian Scriptures 
of their glorious distinction, as a revelation of God. He would 
not have been obliged to spot the divine beauty of Christ, to 
reduce Him tcr his own human level, or to shock his own better 
sense and that of the world, by giving out the expectation that 
other and better Christs will yet be developed, by the progress 
of his sinful race. Faith he would have discovered, as the 
sister of reason ; grace, as the medicine of nature. In a word, 
he would have been a Christian in his doctrine, which now he 



356 HOW RELATED TO THE 

is not ; for, if there be any sufficient, infallible, and always 
applicable distinction, that separates a Christian from one who 
is not, it is the faith, practically held, of a supernatural grace 
or religion. There is no vestige of Christian life in the work- 
ing-plan of nature. Christianity exists only to have a remedial 
action upon the contents and conditions of nature. That is 
development ; this is regeneration. No one fatally departs 
from Christianity, who rests the struggles of holy character on 
help supernatural from God. No one really is in it, however 
plausible the semblance of his approach to it, who rests in the 
terms of morality, or self-culture, or self-magnetizing practice. 

If the argument we have traced should be found to have 
established a solid conviction of truth in the supernatural 
facts and powers of Christianity, it will go far to invert the 
relative opinion of nature and faith in all Christian believers, 
and must therefore work * important changes in many things 
pertaining to the interests of the Christian truth. It must vary 
the estimate, for example, that is currently held of natural 
theology. It is even a principal distinction of our modern 
Christianity, that it has submitted itself, so implicitly, to the 
dominating ideas and fashions of the new religion, science, or 
supposed science, that passes by this name. It is a kind of 
revised Christianity, a gospel that is preached in the method, 
set up in the plane, saturated with the spirit, and even 
where it is not suspected, compounded of the matter, of the 
science. The Christian schools begin with natural theology, 
because it is conceived to be fundamental, and the young men 
are long in disabusing themselves of their mistake ; for any- 
thing which can be proved for religion out of nature, and in the 
field of natural reason, is conceived to be specially solid, and 
impossible to be doubted longer. All which I call a mistake, 
however, not because of any positive mischief in deductions of 
this kind. The evil suffered is due, not so much to what our 
natural theology does, as to what it requires to be left undone ; 
or, to be more explicit, to the fact that it requires all super- 
natural evidences to give way to it, as being themselves a more 
questionable kind of verity ; even as the ill-favoured and lean 
kine of Pharaoh's dream devoured those which were better. 
The opposite pole is represented here by Dr Henry More, who 
builds his argument for the existence of God to a considerable 



METHOD OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 357 

degree, on the basis of supernatural facts; such as dreams, 
prophecies, premonitions, visions, revelations, and the like — a 
curious and striking evidence, when viewed in contrast with 
our present conceptions, of the change of mental position that 
may be wrought in the thinking world, in a comparatively brief 
space of time. The modern advances in science compelled the 
change, and it could not be resisted. Neither was it desirable 
that it should be ; for, when the new theology of nature is 
once qualified, by restoring the other pole of the subject, which 
belongs more distinctly to Christianity, it will be found to have 
expelled multitudes of superstitious and unilluminated vagaries, 
necessary to be expelled,, before it was possible to hold the 
supernatural evidences, in the manner of true intelligence 
necessary to their genuine effect. Then the two worlds of 
evidences are seen to be complementary to each other, and the 
argument for God, the Christian God, is complete as never before. 

The evil in our present stage of thought is, that natural 
theology has the whole ground to itself, and the God established 
is not a being who meets the conditions of Christianity at all. 
We get, of course, no proofs out of nature that go farther than 
to prove a God of nature, least of all do we get any that show 
Him to be acting supernaturally to restore the disorders of 
nature. "What we discover is a God who institutes, is revealed 
by, and, as many will suspect, is the causes of nature. A 
latent pantheism lurks in the argument. Calling the God we 
prove a personal being, and meaning it in good faith, we yet 
find ourselves living before causes, and looking for consequences. 
We only half believe in prayer. We expect to be delivered 
of sin by a long course of duty and self- reformation, that will 
finally pacify the offended laws of nature and bring them on 
our side again. That God will do anything for us Himself, or 
hold any terms of real society with us we but faintly believe. 
That used to be the opinion of ancient times, but the world, 
we imagine, is now growing more philosophical. The result is 
that, professing Christianity in the most orthodox manner, we 
live in natural theology, half way on the road to pantheism. 
Even the incarnation and the miracles of Jesus drop into a 
virtually dead faith, becoming forms in place of living and 
life-giving realities. 

And the reason is, that our God, derived from nature, is a 
monosyllable only, or at best a mechanical first cause, and no such 



358 HOW RELATED TO THE 

being as the soul wants, or as Christianity supposes in its doctrines 
of regenerated life, and in all its supernatural machineries. Rest- 
ing here, therefore, or allowing ourselves, to be retained by what 
we call our natural theology, Christianity dies out on our 
hands for the want of a Christian God. And, accordingly it 
is a remarkable fact, even in history, that we have lost faith in 
God just in proportion to the industry we have spent in proving 
His existence by the natural evidences. First, because, the 
God we prove does not meet our living wants, being only a 
name for causes, or a God of causes ; secondly, because, in 
turning to Christianity for help, we have rather to turn away 
from the God we have proved than toward Him. We may 
seem to have established the fact of God's existence, but if God 
is gained, Christianity is lost ! 

There is no relief to this mischief, but to conceive, at the be- 
ginning, that nature is but a fraction of the complete system of 
God, and no integer ; that the true, living God, beautifully ex- 
pressed in a small way in nature, is a vastly superior being 
still, who holds the worlds of nature in His hands, and acts 
upon them as the Rectifier, Redeemer, Regenerator, and is even 
more visibly, convincingly, and gloriously expressed in Christi- 
anity that He is in the worlds. Show Him at the head of the 
great kingdom of minds, compassionate to sin, conversant with 
sinners, a hearer of prayer, an illuminator of experience, a de- 
liverer from the retributions of nature, the glorious new-creator 
of all the most glorious characters in the world. Display the 
self- evidencing tokens of His feeling and work as the God 
supernatural — God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Him- 
self. There is more convincing evidence for God in the life and 
passion of Jesus than in all the mechanical adaptations of the 
worlds. The God of the Bible and the Church, the God that 
rules the world in the interest of Christ and salvation, mani- 
fested in the divine beauty, and the mighty works and heroic 
sufferings of His saints — this is the God that speaks to our true 
wants. Provoke such wants, and let Him speak. This kind 
of evidence restores the equilibrium of the mere natural evi- 
dences, makes the God established a person, the true living God, 
and the supernatural facts of Christianity are sustained and not 
discredited by our belief in Him. 

It does not appear to be suspected that our modern ten- 
dencies to pantheism are at all related to our overdoing in the 



POSITIVE INSTITUTIONS. 359 

matter of natural theology, but it will by and by be discovered 
that we are greatly imposed upon by our zeal, and took our 
ingenuity in this kind of proof- building for a good deal more 
than it was worth. Never is God conceived to be really 
personal till He is shown outside of nature, acting upon 
nature even as we do ourselves. The proofs we seek are 
genuine only when they correspond and show us what wants 
to be shown. 

It is also a matter of consequence in our argument, as related 
to the wants of the age, that it provides a place for the positive 
institutions of religion, and prepares a rational basis for their 
authority. It is frequently remarked that, for some reason, 
these positive institutions are falling rapidly into disrespect, 
as if destined finally to be quite lost or sunk in oblivion. 
Various reasons are assigned for this fact, which amount to 
nothing more definite than that such is the spirit of the times. 
The true reason is the growth and pervading influence of 
naturalism, which not only does not want, but excludes such 
institutions. This doctrine assumed, they are theoretically im- 
possible. As the word institution itself indicates, they are 
supernatural creations ; that is, something set up on the world 
of nature, not developments out of nature. Besides, it is the 
manner and temper of naturalism to be impatient of anything 
not established in terms of natural reason, and spurn it as 
having no sufficient authority. Accordingly it will be seen, that 
as we grow more naturalistic, just in the same proportion do 
these institutions lose their hold of us. What have we to do 
with the Church — can we not be as good Christians out of the 
Church as in it ? "What signify the sacraments, even if they 
were distinctly appointed by Christ ? they cannot save us, and 
we can well enough be saved without them. And what is a 
holy day but a needless restriction, when one time ought to be 
as holy as another ? So too of the Bible ; that, as related to 
nature, is a positive institution. And so again of Christianity 
itself, which began to be instituted in the ancient ritual, and 
was finished, or fully completed when the higher sense of that 
ritual was displayed in the terms of the Christian salvation. 
It was set up on the world by a God who is not imprisoned in 
it, but is acting on it from without, to rescue it from the action 
of its disordered causalities. What are all these pretended 



360 HOW RELATED TO 

institutions of God but incumbrances and encroachments on our 
liberty ? And what necessary use do they serve ? They are, 
I answer, what body is to soul. All vital or vitalizing powers 
are organific, and live by means of their embodiment. These 
institutions are the body of religious organization, the conditions 
in that manner of religious power and perpetuity. Cast away 
this body, and religion is a disembodied ghost only, flitting 
across the world, but never resting in it. Truth becomes a 
vagrant. Worship has no time or seat. Preachers have no 
calling or commission. And the no-church, no-observance 
people come into the world to merely wear out and die, without 
faith, without holy virtue, without great sentiments to conserve 
society, or illuminate the night of their virtual atheism. If we 
talk of an " Absolute Eeligion," that is going to abide and reign 
without institutions, it will reign as Absolute Vacuity. However 
eloquently preached for the time, and however promising the 
show it makes by works of reform and social philanthropy, it will 
be seen to organize nothing, and when once its aim is accom- 
plished in the extinction of all that Christianity organizes, it 
will simply cease to work, as all poison does when the subject 
is dead. 

That Christianity will utterly die, however, for this or any 
other cause, we are not to believe. But the tendency of our 
time is one that must be finally arrested, by one or the other of 
these two methods ; by restoring a distinct and properly intelli- 
gent faith in the supernatural reign of Christ, such as I have 
here undertaken to set forth, or else by a blind recoil, such as 
mere vacuity and the pains of vagrancy will instigate. In the 
first and true method, we shall have the positive institutions, 
holding them in respect, and observing them in practice, be- 
cause we conceive a God who is not waiting for the development 
of nature, but working to regenerate nature, by what he can 
erect upon it and do in it. But if religion gets no body and no 
organized state by this rational and true method, then it will 
have them by a worse ; for, when we have gone loose for a long 
time, in this kind of dissipation, and scattered the body of reli- 
gion as fine dust on the winds, there will finally come a reaction, 
a painful want of forms, observances, and organizations, and a 
greedy, irrational hurrying back to the Church that offers such 
a bountiful supply. The Absolute Religion that excludes a 
Church will conduct us back to the Absolute Church, and there, 



SOCIAL REFORM. 361 

as disappointed victims of one, we shall go in, to be busied and 
fooled by observances and sacraments of the other, losing out 
our intelligence, and even God's light itself, under an immense 
overgrowth of institutions which he did not appoint, and which 
have really no agreement with His truth. 

The conception we have raised of Christianity, as a regenera- 
tive work and institution of God, separates it, by a wide chasm, 
from any mere scheme of philanthropy or social reform. As to 
reforms that begin at the outside, and stop at the rectification 
of the outward conduct, they may be beneficial or they may 
not. There is a degree of vice, and consequent misery, that, 
for the time, incapacitates the subject for the reception of truth 
and the Christian influences. There are also external wrongs 
and disorders of sin, that only represent to men the inward 
state of their hearts ; holding up the glass in which they may 
see themselves ; and it is no genuine interest of Christianity to 
get these smoothed away. It is even a great part of God's 
wisdom, in casting the plan of our life, that He has set us in 
conditions to bring out the evil that is in us. For it is by this 
medley that we make of wrongs, fears, pains of the mind, and 
pains of the body, all the woes of all shapes and sizes that fol- 
low at the heels of our sin — by these it is that He dislodges 
our perversity, and draws us to Himself. If, therefore, by a 
grand comprehensive sweep of reform, we could get all the mis- 
doings, that we call sins, out of sight, and the sin of the spirit, 
as a state separated from the consciousness of God, shut in, so 
as nowhere to appear, it would be the greatest imaginable mis- 
fortune. We should have a race acting paradisiacally in their 
behaviour, when they have no principle of good in their life. 
It is very true that no mere reform is likely to reach this 
point ; for it is very certain that men will do sins enough or 
have vices enough to represent and shame their sin. And yet 
the merely naturalistic reformers go to just this task ; the task, 
that is, of an external purgation of the world. This is their 
religion, and they take on often such airs, in what they imagine 
to be the superior philanthropy, or the superior fidelity and 
boldness of their course, that they seem even to be holding out 
a challenge to Christianity to come and try, if it can do as 
much as they ! Are they not going to take care of the progress 
of society ? Are they not also going finally to get all the evils of 



862 HOW RELATED TO THE 

life away ? Christianity undertakes no such thing — unless by 
undertaking more. It goes only a certain way in the matter of 
reforms; viz., far enough to show its true interest in every- 
thing human, and especially far enough to get those vices and 
sins in hospital, which, as they continue to rage, take away 
self-possession, abate the force of reason, and disqualify the 
subject for the gospel. But it has a quiet perception of the 
folly and absurdity of any plan, which expects to smooth up 
the world in its sin, or its alienation from God. Back of sins 
it recognizes sin ; back of the acts, a state which they ex- 
press and represent. This it regenerates; and so, working 
outward from the inmost centre, it proposes to reform every- 
thing. 

Great reforms are certainly wanted. No Christian, there- 
fore, will dishonour the faith of a supernatural remedy in Christ, 
by taking refuge behind it, and avoiding, in that manner, 
his responsibilities — how is he going to regenerate all the sin 
of the world, when he dare not speak of the sins ? On the 
other hand, he will not be intimidated by the outcry of the 
reformers, that upbraid his Christian slowness, or beguiled by 
their pretentious airs, when they make it a religion, or even a 
more superlative religion, to be doing such prodigious things 
for society. Their appeal is to public opinion, not to God. 
They make their own gospel as they go, and have undertaken 
themselves to do such things for the world, that men will say, 
" Behold Christianity was a failure ! " The force too by which 
they operate is in their will, and this strikes fire into the 
nitrous element of their passion the moment they encounter 
resistance. They grow hot and violent. Denunciation be- 
comes their element, and, as numbers are added, they run to a 
genuine fanaticism. No Christian has any place on this level. 
As far as he undertakes to co-operate in reforms, he must do it 
as one who stays above with Christ, and works with him ; re- 
taining his passions, by not losing his will ; mixing his reproofs 
with his prayers, and moderating his ambition by resting his 
cause, in the mighty power of God. 

To admit, in its full force, the reality of our Christian or 
supernatural relations to God, would also very certainly result 
in a more apostolic manner of preaching. For preaching 
deals appropriately in the supernatural, publishing to guilty 



MANNER OF PREACHING. 363 

souls what has come into the world from above the world — 
Christ and His salvation. We ask, how often, with real sad- 
ness, whence the remarkable impotence of preaching in our 
time ? It is because we concoct our gospels too much in the 
laboratories of our understanding ; because we preach too many 
disquisitions, and look for effects correspondent only with the 
natural forces exerted. True preaching is a testimony; it 
offers not things reasoned in any principal degree, but things 
given, supernatural things, testifying them as being in their 
power, by an utterance which they fill and inspire. It brings 
new premises, which, of course, no argument can create, and 
therefore speaks to faith. And, what is most of all peculiar, 
it assumes the fact in men of a religious nature, higher than a 
merely thinking nature, which, if it can be duly awakened, 
cleaves to Christ and His salvation with an almost irresistible 
affinity. This religious nature is a capacity for the super- 
natural ; that is, for the divinely supernatural ; in other words, 
it is that quality by which we become inspirable creatures, 
permeable by God's life, as a crystal by the light, permeable in 
a sense that no other creature is. Indeed, the great problem 
of the gospel is in one view, to inspire us again, at a point 
where we are uninspired ; to permeate us again by the divine 
nature, and make us conscious again of God. In this view, it 
assumes to speak as to a want, and what a want it is, that a 
capacity even for God, in the soul, stands empty ! And hence 
it is that so many infidels have been converted under preaching, 
that went directly by their doubts, only bringing up the mighty 
themes of God and salvation, and throwing them in as torches 
into the dark, blank cavern of their empty heart. They are 
not put upon their reason, but the burning glow of their inborn 
affinities for the Divine are kindled, and the blaze of these 
overtops their speculations, and scorches them down by its 
glare. Doubtless there are times and occasions, where some- 
thing may be gained by raising a trial before the understanding. 
But there may also be something lost, even in cases where that 
kind of issue is fairly gained. Many a time nothing is wanting 
but to speak as to a soul already hungry and thirsty ; or, if 
not consciously so, ready to hunger and thirst, as soon as the 
bread and water of life are presented. If the problem is to get 
souls under sin inspired again, which it certainly is, then it is 
required that the preacher shall drop lecturing on religion and 



364 HOW EELATED TO 

preach it ; testify it, prophesy it, speak to faith as being in 
faith, bring inspiration as being inspired, and so become the 
vehicle, in his own person, of the power he will communicate, 
that he may truly beget in the gospel such as will be saved by 
it. No man is a preacher, because he has something like, or 
about a gospel, in his head. He really preaches only when his 
person is the living embodiment, the inspired organ of the 
gospel ; in that manner no mere human power, but the 
demonstration of a Christly and Divine power. It is in this 
manner that preaching has had, in former times, effects so 
remarkable. At present we are almost all under the power, 
more or less, of the age in which we live. Infected with 
naturalism ourselves and having hearers that are so, we can 
hardly find what account to make of our barrenness. 

It is also a matter of consequence to be anticipated in a just 
and full establishment of supernatural verities, that intellectual 
and moral philosophy are destined, in this way, to be finally 
Christianized ; and so, that all science will, at last, be melted 
into unity with the religion of Christ. Our professors of 
philosophy leave it to the theologians to settle the question 
whether man is a sinner or not, and go on to assume that he is 
in the normal state of his being, acting precisely according to 
his nature ; when, if the theologians chance to doubt any of 
their conclusions, the reply is, that they do not understand 
philosophy. 

Now it is either true that man is a sinner, or it is not. If 
he is not a sinner, then he exists normally, and what he is in 
his action, he is in his nature, and a great many questions will 
be settled accordingly. On the other hand, if he is a sinner, 
acting against God, acting as he was not made to act, then he 
is, by the supposition, a disordered nature, a being in the state 
of unnature. Any philosophy therefore which does not recog- 
nize the fact, but deduces his nature from his present demon- 
strations, must be wholly at fault. 

And how different any philosophy of man must be, which 
ignores the fact of sin, from one that does not, may be easily 
seen. Let the subject be the relation of our powers and 
capacities to our ideals. One who makes no account of sin, 
will say, develope the capacities and you have the ideals — he 
will even infer the capacities from the ideals. But to one who 



INTELLECTUAL AND MOKAL PHILOSOPHY. 365 

duly recognizes sin, there is nothing so sad, as the fact that the 
mind flowers into ideals that it cannot reach, conceiving a 
beauty, a perfectly crystalline order, when it can as little drag 
itself into this beauty, this crystalline order, as it could a shat- 
tered firmament. 

Or, let the subject be, what is the nature of virtue, or, more 
particularly, whether self-love is the determining motive in all 
virtue ? Taking it for granted that, what men do they are 
made to do, and finding that the common world of men are 
actuated by self-love in their virtue, the inference is that such 
is the manner of all virtue ; it is what men do for fear, for 
gain, or for some matter of mere self-interest ; in which virtue 
and vice are exactly alike. But one who recognizes the fact of 
sin immediately suspects that the self-love power enters into 
men's virtue thus largely because they are sinners. In the 
highest, the truly Divine virtue, he looks for a spontaneous or 
inspired movement, where the good is followed because it is 
good, the right because it is right, God because He is God. 
And the conclusion is, that what the other calls virtue is only 
a form of sin. 

Or again, the question may be, what is the perfect state of 
man ? Ignoring the fact of sin, the conclusion will be that he 
is perfected, in squaring himself by the rules of virtue ; he is 
consummated, that is, in the matter of ethics. But where sin 
is taken into account, it will be recollected that men, as 
commonly observed, are out of place and out of the true line of 
experience ; that they have departed from God ; and that their 
properly religious nature is detained by sin, or closed up. To 
be completely filled with God, and perfected in the eternal 
movement of God ; in a word, to be conscious of God, and dwell 
in the Divine impulse or inspiration — that is the perfect state. 
He has found, in other words, that man is just what he most 
entirely omitted to be, or perhaps never once thought of in his 
fallen life, an inspirable creature, having, in that fact, the real 
summit, the grandeur, and glory of his being. He culminates 
in God, not in any rules of ethics. His goodness is not the 
perfect drill he submits to, and tries to observe, but it is the 
freedom of a spontaneous, inspired, and truly divine beauty. 

How different a thing must it be, to philosophize about a sub- 
stance that acts according to its nature, and about one that acts 
in contradiction both of its nature and its God ! Doubtless the 



366 HOW RELATED TO 

latter is a much higher form of being than the other ; for it can- 
not he a thing, it can he nothing less than a power, glorious 
and transcendent ; and therefore it is that man, contemplated at 
just this point of sin, rises to a pitch of tragic sublimity and 
grandeur, as nowhere else. Why then should our philosophy 
refuse to look at him, just where his real stature is revealed ? 
When this fact of sin is referred back to theologians, and de- 
clared, either with or without a sneer, to be in their province, a 
much greater compliment is paid them than is commonly 
thought. It is giving them up all that belongs to man's real 
greatness, and claiming the husk that is left. 

This separation of intellectual and moral philosophy from the 
great religious problem of our existence, the fact of sin, and the 
want of salvation, is the more remarkable, that it is a descent 
from the more dignified and nobler conceptions of the ancient 
heathen masters. It is unnatural, and even unintelligent. How 
can philosophy, dealing with a supernatural subject, stand oft 
from the facts of his supernatural history ? Endeavouring to 
stay by nature, and magnify the natural history, it only takes 
a brick for Babylon, and gives a science of the brick. There is 
to be a speedy revision of this false method. No real philoso- 
pher can long ignore the supernatural. Religion then takes 
hold of philosophy, and sets it to the study of her problems. 
All natural science will follow, setting itself in affinity with 
things supernatural. The philosophies are then baptized, in 
being simply inducted into a just conception of the one system 
of God. Now the young minds trained in such studies are not 
led away, but led directly up to Christ and the glorious truth of 
His mission. That mission is become the pole star of learning, 
and how great the change that must follow ! 

Once more it appears to be an important consequence of the 
argument we have instituted, that, in assigning the supernatural 
a definite place, and a firm, intellectual ground, it contributes 
a valuable aid to Christian experience. There is a feeling widely 
prevalent, that when we talk of faith we are covering up the 
want of intelligence; that when we speak of the supernatural, 
we mean something ghostly, supplied by the imagination, and 
verified only by our superstitions ; that when we name the mat- 
ter of religious experience, we suppose a drivelling, and, as it 
were, forced admission of the soul, to what a rational philoso- 



CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 367 

pliy must of course reject. All such impressions will, I trust, 
be removed, as unworthy and really unjust by the argument I 
have now presented. 

It finds a place for the supernatural in the scheme of exist- 
ence itself ; showing that we ourselves are supernatural agents 
as really, only not in the same degree of power, as Christ in 
His miracles. It gets a footing, in this manner, for super- 
natural facts and agencies, among the known realities. More 
than this, it shows that nature is not, by itself, any complete 
whole or real universe, but is, in fact, only a scaffolding, the 
smallest, humblest part of the intellectual whole, or system of 
God's empire ; while, on the other hand, the supernatural side 
of His plan, concerned with free intelligences, their government 
and redemption, and the building of them into a temple of eter- 
nal Love and Beauty round Himself, comprises all the real and 
last ends of His throne. 

Everything is thus made ready for best advances in religious 
experience. For there is a close relation, scarcely different from 
identity, between faith and what is called experience ; and both 
are terms that have a fixed reference to the fact, that Christ 
and Christianity are supernatural bestowments. If they could 
be reasoned out of premises already in the mind, they would not 
require faith. But Christ comes into the world from without, 
to bestow himself by a presentation. He is a new premise, that 
could not be reasoned, but must first be, and then can be re- 
ceived only by faith. When He is so received or appropriated, 
He is, of course, experienced or known by experiment ; in that 
manner verified — he that believeth hath the witness in himself. 
The manner, therefore, of this divine experience, called faith, is 
strictly Baconian. And the result is an experimental know- 
ledge of God, or an experimental acquaintance with God, in the 
reception of his supernatural communications. Which know- 
ledge, again, or acquaintance, is, in fact, a revelation within, 
a divine manifestation, a restored consciousness of God, or we 
may call it peace, joy, strength, a growth into the divine purity 
— it is any and all these together. And it should not be strange 
that, in such a participation of God, we are lifted, empowered, 
assimilated, or finally glorified. 

It will be admitted that what is properly called religious 
experience runs low in our time. Even the phrase itself is care- 
fully eschewed by many as a term of cant, that lacks, or is 



368 HOW RELATED TO 

suspected of lacking, any basis of intelligence. We learn to be 
familiar with the phrase " philosophic consciousness," and speak 
with satisfaction of " cultivating the philosophic consciousness," 
but religious experience belongs to a lower class of people, who 
cannot ascend to so high a matter. One pertains to a rational 
culture, the other is a relic of pietism, now gone by, with all 
but the feebler minds. No fact presents the intellectual habit 
of our time in a more pitiable light. To get experience of our- 
selves, or a practical consciousness of our own little subjectivity, 
we account to be something of importance ; but to recover, un- 
fold, grow into, and become ennobled by the consciousness of 
God, united to Him as the all-sufficient object and fulness of 
our life — this, we think, is something related to weakness ! And 
to this folly we are shrunk by the wretched conceit of our na- 
turalism. What if it should happen to be true, that we are all 
inherently related to God, having our summits of thought, power, 
quality, greatness in Him, made to be conscious of Him as of 
ourselves, and in that nobler consciousness to live ! What if 
this too should happen to be the truth waiting our embrace, at 
the point of littleness and mere self-consciousness sharpened by 
our sin ! How sorry the picture we make, when we figure it in 
this manner, as the superlative wisdom, to have a cultivated 
power of self-reflection, and only another name for weakness to 
speak of religious experience ! If I am right in the matter of 
my argument, a very different impression is justified. Mere 
naturalism it shows, in fact, to be a fraud against nature. It 
soundly authenticates the grand supernatural verities of the 
gospel and of Christian experience, showing that without them 
there is no rational unity even in what we call the universe. 

The utmost confidence may now be felt in all the expecta- 
tions and exploits of faith ; in prayer, in divine guidance, in 
the cares of a supernatural providence, in all the heavenly gifts. 
Clear of all reserve the disciple may go to his calling, as one 
detained by no misgivings or lurking suspicions. And his 
success will be according to his confidence. Weakened by no 
foolish suspicion of being at fault intellectually, he will go on 
manfully and boldly, instructed always by his experience, and 
advancing always upon it ; removing greater mountains as he 
gets more faith ; and giving all men to see, who chance to 
observe him, what power and lustre there is in a life thus hid 
with Christ in God. Verily, such it is that we want as the 



CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 369 

preachers and pastors and saints of our time ; men whose 
strength is the joy of the Lord ; men who dwell in the secret 
place of the Most High; men who walk in glorious liberty, 
living no more to themselves, but to Christ who bought them : 
preaching Christ by their example, their prayers, their prophe- 
syings, and witnessing, by the blessed fruits of their faith, to 
its ennobling verity and greatness. 

The argument we have traced prepares also a yet further 
contribution to Christian experience, in bringing more distinctly 
forward the question of a possible discovery aud statement of 
the laws of the supernatural. How great a change has been 
wrought in the creative and productive processes of human 
industry by a scientific discovery of the laws of nature. The 
address we make to nature, and the forces of nature, is now 
intelligent, and our productive powers are as much greater, as 
the forces we harness are stronger and more obedient. The 
world itself is quite another world, displaying new and vastly 
higher possibilities. What now is wanted in the domain of 
Christian experience, is a similar development of the laws of 
the supernatural ; when a correspondent change will be observed 
in the productive forces and the progressive conquests of the 
spiritual life. When these laws are once developed, the men 
of the kingdom will see it, as never before, to be a kingdom, 
and will know exactly by what process to be advanced and 
established in it. It will be as when alchemy gave way to 
chemistry, astrology to astronomic computations, the divining- 
rod and other saws and superstitions of mining to the intelli- 
gent prospecting of geologic science, agriculture in the times of 
the moon to agriculture in the terms of experimental and 
scientific guidance. Not that any science of supernatural 
things, or things of religious experience, is possible to be 
created, that shall prove itself in the same manner to the mere 
natural judgment or intellect. It must be a science if we use 
that term, that pertains to the higher realm of the Spirit. It 
must, therefore, stand in terms of analogy and figure, which can 
fully unfold their meaning only to minds enlightened in a degree 
by holy experience. It must be a contribution to faith, of the 
laws by which it may address itself to the supernatural forces of 
grace, and the manifestations of God. In the initial points of 
faith it must approve itself to the mere intelligence ; in points 
further on it must approve itself more and more to spiritual 

2a 



370 HOW RELATED TO 

insight in its advanced stages. Hitherto there has "been a large 
mixture of superstition in religious experience. Proposing to 
get on hy application, it has yet trusted more to heat than to 
light. It has looked for visions and revelations without law. 
It has been a kind of spiritual alchemy, taken by wonderful 
surprises, and blown up as often by fanatical explosions. The 
progress it has made has been fantastic, and it has finally 
reached the abiding place of order and sobriety only by a long 
course of eccentricities and blindfold experiments. There has 
even been a kind of impression that God Himself is irregular, 
and, in some good sense, capricious in His supernatural gifts, 
therefore to be reached by no certain method, but only by a 
sort of adventure that will some time chance to find Him. 
How different the fortunes of religious experience, when it is 
regarded — which in some future time it will be — as a coming 
unto God by the laws that regulate His bestowments ; when 
the world of His supernatural kingdom is conceived to be as 
truly under laws as the world of nature, and these laws, 
accurately distinguished, enable the disciple to address himself 
accurately to the powers of grace, as now to the forces of 
nature. 

Our argument favours such an expectation. It brings the 
supernatural into the grand, fore-ordinated circle of existence, 
and makes it even a central part of that stupendous whole or 
integer which we call the universe. It also conceives that 
God works by laws in the supernatural, in the incarnation and 
the miracles of Jesus, in His sacrifice and death, in the mission 
of the Spirit and all spiritual gifts. Indeed, there is no being 
but a bad one, a sinner, that is not punctually and exactly de- 
termined by some law. Not even the atoms of a crystal are 
more exactly set by law, than the thoughts and choices of a 
perfect mind. And though it be not any law of physical 
necessity, such as we discover in the causalities of nature, it is 
none the less a law of unalterable and undeviating control. In 
God Himself, it is the law by which, as presiding over the 
thoughts, the ends, and the determinations of His perfect mind, 
the laws of nature were themselves conceived and appointed — the 
higher law of His goodness and His moral reason. Neither let 
it be imagined that this higher tier of law, which governs God 
in His supernatural dispensations, is to us inaccessible or undis- 
cernible. As the fall of an apple showed to Newton's eye the 



CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 371 

law that presides over the remotest worlds of the physical 
universe, so we shall find, not seldom, in the most familiar 
principles of duty and sentiments of religion, things in ourselves 
that infallibly interpret Him. A large inference may be also 
derived from the admitted fact of His perfection ; for, while 
nothing definite or certain can be predicated of imperfection in 
a subject unknown as regards its law, the exact ideal imperfection 
of God, like that of the astronomic order, suffers a large and 
free deduction respecting all His tempers, ends, and methods. 
Much also may be gathered from the general economy of the 
supernatural, as displayed in the work and counsel of human 
redemption. Much is given by express revelation ; for though 
it is not common to regard, as definite and fixed laws of divine 
action or bestowment, the familiar rules by which our approach 
to God is regulated in the Scripture, they do yet suppose that 
He is regulated Himself by terms correspondent. The rule 
— to him that hath shall be given — first be reconciled to thy 
brother — if two of you shall agree as touching anything — 
if our heart condemn us not — if a man hate his brother — as we 
forgive them that trespass against us — if ye keep my command- 
ment — if ye search for me with all the heart — all these con- 
ditions of prayer and terms of approach to God are in a yet 
higher view laws of the Spirit, supposing that God's gifts 
themselves are dispensable only in terms that correspond. And 
besides all these, a large discovery also can be made of things 
supernatural and their laws by our own experience ; for as he 
that loveth knoweth God, so the whole life of faith is an ex- 
perience and spiritual discovery of God. And no discovery of 
natural science is more valid. Nor is there anything in which 
a ripe Christian can do more for experimental religion, than in 
giving to the help of such as will seek after God, a treatise 
drawn from all these sources on the laws of God's supernatural 
kingdom — the kingdom of grace and salvation. No other con- 
tribution to the truth of Christ is so much needed, or promises 
results of so great moment. First, that which is natural, after- 
ward that which is spiritual. It was necessary to this higher 
kind of progress that the discoveries of natural science should 
precede and raise the expectation of laws here also to be veri- 
fied. And when it is done, as it will not be in any brief space 
of time, the world may begin to think of a general consumma- 
tion at hand. Faith will now grow solid, and overtop the 



672 HOW RELATED TO CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

temples of reason with its grandeur. Eeligious experience, 
conceived and proved to be the revelation of God, will become 
a general embodiment of the divine in human history, fulfilling 
the idea of the incarnation, never till then completely intelligible. 
There will be order without constraint, and liberty without 
fanaticism. The desultory will give place to the regular, and a 
kind of holy skill will distinguish all the approaches of men to 
God, and all the works they do in His name. The power of 
Christian piety will be as much greater than now, as it knows 
how to connect more certainly and more in the manner of 
science with the resources of God. 

Until then the highest and even truest principles of Christian 
experience are likely to involve some danger of fanaticism. I 
cannot be sure that persons will not appear who, professing to 
lay hold of points advanced in this treatise, use them fanatically, 
as the fuel of their strange fire. Fanaticism can certainly find 
a shelter under it, and gather out of it many pretexts for extra- 
vagance and delusion, even as it has done in all ages out of 
Christianity itself ; but I cherish a degree of confidence, that 
what I have advanced will be a contribution rather to the in- 
telligence than to the delusions of the Christian world. It has 
been my endeavour to put honour on faith — to restore, if pos- 
sible, the genuine apostolic faith. I have even wished, shall I 
dare to say hoped, that I might do something to inaugurate 
that faith in the field of modern science, and claim for it there 
that respect to which, in the sublimity of its reasons it is en- 
titled. And great will be the day when faith, laying hold of 
science and rising into intellectual majesty with it, is acknow- 
ledged in the glorious sisterhood of a common purpose, and both 
lead in the realms they occupy, reconciled to God, cleared of 
the disorders and woes of sin, to set them in that final unity 
which represents the eternal Headship of Christ. 



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